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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No.... 

T: 



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7 

RICA. 



BOOKS BY H. CLAY TRUMBULL 



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%* 



IN TRIBULATION 



OR 



The Blessing of Trials 




H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
If 









PHILADELPHIA 

JOHN D. WATTLES & CO. 

1896 



;^/^?^) r 
.-T? 




Copyright, 1896, 

BY 

H. CLAY TRUMBULL. 



ifoteworb 

Only He who made our hearts fully 
understands them; and no one but the 
Son of man who is the Son of God can be 
touched with the feeling of all our infirmi- 
ties, having been in all points tried as we 
have been tried. But whoever has had 
any experience of trials, suffering, sorrow, 
bereavement, and has been divinely helped 
to profit by that experience, can hope to be 
of service in words of sympathy to those 
similarly tried and troubled. It is the heart 
which bleeds with its own sorrows which 
can go out in living sympathy toward 
another bleeding heart ; and it is the hearts 
that have gained comfort from the God 
of all comfort that can speak comforting 
words to others who are in any affliction, 
out of the comfort wherewith they them- 
selves have been comforted of God. - 



jfoteworD 

The following pages were mainly written 
while their writer was being tested in the 
fierce flames of a furnace of trial, and while 
cheered by the ever-blessed companion- 
ship and comforting presence of the Son 
of God. It is hoped, by him who was thus 
tried and thus sustained, that his words 
out of the heart may come home to other 
hearts in similar need. 



IV 



Contents 

I 



PAGE 

Mission of Tribulation i 



II 
Tried by Troubles ii 

III 
Tested by Fire 23 

IV 

By Pruning and Pressing ...... 33 

V 
Improving Chastisement 39 

VI 
Suffering as a Duty 49 

VII 
Struggling to Live 61 

VIII 
In the Shadow of Death 69 

IX 
Waiting as a Duty 75 

V 



Contents 
X 

FAG£ 

Hoping through Faith 8i 

XI 
Enduring in Hope 87 

xn 

Toiling Hopelessly 93 

xni 

Never Giving Up 103 

XIV 
Right Bearing of Sorrow . . . . . iii 

XV 
Comforting and Being Comforted . . 119 

XVI 
Giving Expression to Sympathy . . . 125 

XVII 
After the Wreck 135 

XVIII ' 
Afterward, Peace 143 



VI 



/IDission of XCrfbuIatfon 

We connect with the term '' tribulation " 
the severest kind of distress, of suffering, 
of affliction. Yet the word '' tribulation " 
is chiefly used in the Bible as expressive 
of a divinely sent, or a divinely permitted, 
state of trial, which may tend to the spirit- 
ual welfare of those who endure it patiently, 
or who improve it wisely. It behooves us, 
therefore, to consider carefully the nature 
and mission of tribulation, in order that we 
may know when we are in tribulation, and 
vv^hy ; what tribulation is, and what is its 
mission. 

Tribulation, as the term is employed in 
the Bible, means distress, or affliction, or 
trial, especially as growing out of strait- 
ness or pressure which hinders progress as 
one is, and makes it necessary for one to 
give up much that one would like to carry 
I 



In Cri&ulation 

on without yielding. The root idea of the 
Hebrew word in the Old Testament which 
is translated " tribulation," and it is much 
the same with the correspondent Greek 
word in the New Testament, is that of 
squeezing or pressing, as between the walls 
of a rough and jagged rocky pass. It 
seems to be Hke an enemy opposing one's 
movements and seeking one's destruction. 
Yet the call is constantly made, in the Bible, 
on believers, to persevere through this strait- 
ened passage, and to endure this unpleasant 
pressure, in the hope of gain from it by 
God's blessing. 

Jesus declares to his followers as he fore- 
tells their future : '^ In the world ye have 
tribulation [or severe pressure] : but be of 
good cheer ; I have overcome the world." 
The assurance to believers, after his resur- 
rection and ascension, was, '' that through 
many tribulations [or distresses] we must 
enter into the kingdom of God." The 
apostolic injunction is: ^' Let us also re- 
joice in our tribulations [or afflictions] : 

2 



nQt66ton of G^rtbulatton 

knowing that tribulation [or straitness] 
worketh patience; and patience, probation; 
and probation, hope : and hope putteth not 
to shame ; because the love of God hath 
been shed abroad in our hearts through the 
Holy Spirit which w^as given unto us." 
The idea in these uses of the word trans- 
lated " tribulation " evidently is that of a 
God-permitted pressure, that may, by his 
blessing, work for good. This is the 
Bible idea ; now how is that indicated, or 
expressed, in the English word ^^ tribula- 
tion " ? 

As to the history and significance of this 
word, Archbishop Trench says forcefully : 
'' We all know in a general way that this 
word, which occurs not seldom in Scrip- 
ture and in the [Church of England] 
Liturgy, means affliction, sorrow, anguish ; 
but it is quite worth our while to know 
how it means this, and to question ' tribula- 
tion ' a little closer. It is derived from the 
Latin ^ tribulum,' which was the threshing 
instrument or harrow whereby the Roman 
3 



Hn G:ribulation 

husbandman separated the corn from the 
husks, and * tribulatio ' in its primary 
significance of the act was this separa- 
tion/' 

*' So far as to the primitive figure of 
speech. But some Latin writer of the 
Christian Church appropriated the word 
and image for the setting forth of a higher 
truth ; and sorrow, distress, and adversity 
being the appointed means for the separat- 
ing in men of whatever in them was Hght, 
trivial, and poor, from the soHd and the 
true, their chaff from their wheat, he there- 
fore called these sorrows and trials ' tribu- 
lations,' — threshings, that is, of the inner 
spiritual man, without which there could 
be no fitting him for the heavenly gar- 
ner." It is also said, as to this significa- 
tion : '' This deeper religious use of the 
word ' tribulation ' was unknown to clas- 
sical antiquity, belonging exclusively to the 
Christian writers." 

Trench quotes, in illustration of this truth, 
the following lines by " George Wither, a 
4 



nuieeion ot tribulation 

prolific versifier, and occasionally a poet, 
of the seventeenth century." 

" Till from the straw the flail the corn doth beat, 
Until the chafif be purged from the wheat, 
Yea, till the mill the grains in pieces tear, 
The richness of the flour will scarce appear. 
So, till men's persons great afflictions touch. 
If worth be found, their worth is not so much, 
Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet 
That value which in threshing they may get. 
For till the bruising flails of God's corrections 
Have threshed out of us our vain affections ; 
Till those con-ections which do misbecome us 
Are by thy sacred Spirit winnowed from us ; 
Until from us the straw of worldly treasures, 
Till all the dusty chaff of empty pleasures. 
Yea, till his flail upon us he doth lay. 
To thresh the husk of this our flesh away ; 
And leave the soul uncovered ; nay, yet more, 
Till God shall make our very spirit poor. 
We shall not up to highest wealth aspire ; 
But then we shall ; and that is my desire." 

The idea of tribulation, therefore, is that 
of separation for purposes of cleansing, of 
purifying, of refining. In this sense it 
includes, not merely threshing, but win- 
nowing, separating the grain from the husk 
5 



Hn C^rlbulatton 

on the stalk, and again the grain from the 
chaff of the husk. It includes also the 
idea of refining by fire, separating the pure 
metal from the worthless dross ; of purify- 
ing by water, washing away the sand and 
loam from the atoms and nuggets of gold ; 
of pressing out the blood of the grape in 
the wine-press, and the rich oil from the 
olive in the oil-press. It includes also the 
process of the parent's or the teacher's rod 
in chastisement, for purposes of training, — 
as, indeed, is indicated in the term *' thrash- 
ing," or ^^ threshing," in the home or the 
school-room, as a means of discipline ; 
thrashing the bad out of the boy in order 
to leave the good by itself 

In this view of tribulation it is that we 
are to rejoice in every process of purifying 
and separation, by which we are to become 
spiritually refined and uplifted. It was in 
this aspect of the mission of the Messiah 
that John the Baptist proclaimed : '' He 
shall baptize you with [or in] the Holy 
Spirit and with [or in] fire : whose fan is 
6 



nilt60ion ot C^rtbulatlon 

in his hand, and he will throughly cleanse 
his threshing-floor ; and he will gather his 
wheat into the garner, but the chaff' he 
will burn up with unquenchable fire." 

" Thou Searcher of all hearts, look down and see, 
Not if the chaff doth most abound in me, 
But if there be a tithe of grace for thee. 

** My lying down, my path, my ways, how poor ; 
My wasted moments' husks bestrew jny floor, ' 
Yet still thou searchest by the garner door. 

'* Content to stoop, if so upon the ground 
One grain of trust, one ear of love, be found ; 
So doth thy patience, dearest Lord, abound." 

Tribulation is our normal condition in 
our present state. Our Saviour promises 
it to us, while we are in the world ; and 
that promise no follower of his will ever 
say Jesus has failed to make good. We 
are all to be under pressure from the flail 
and the fan and the fire and the press, from 
the plow and the harrow and the sickle. 
If we are without tribulation, there is to us 
no harvest and no garner. We might as 
well have never lived as to be without the 
7 



Hn a:vtbulatlon 

process that separates the good from the 
bad, the precious from the worthless. God 
be praised for tribulation and its results ! 

** Blest be thy dew, and blest thy frost, 
And happy I to be so crost. 
And cured by crosses at thy cost. 

** The dew doth cheer what is distrest ; 
The frosts ill weeds nip and molest ; 
In both thou work'st unto the best." 

Nothing that is good shall be harmed in 
a child of God by the destructive forces of 
tribulation, whether in the fire, the flood, 
the gale, or under the flail or the press; but 
when the refuse has been destroyed, that 
which is precious shall stand out cleansed 
and refined in permanent and eternal purity. 
If we would be at our best for now and 
forevermore, we must " abhor that which 
is evil," we must '' cleave to that which is 
good," being ^' patient in tribulation," while 
" rejoicing in hope." 

When John, in Patmos, had a vision of 
that which is to come to pass before the 
final dissolution of the present heavens and 
8 



tuiiseton ot a:vibulation 

the present earth, he saw the angels, and 
the elders, and the living creatures, all on 
their faces before the throne, worshiping 
God. And one of the elders asked him 
concerning an object of special interest in 
the great multitude there gathered, whom 
none could number : '' These which are 
arrayed in white robes, who are they, and 
whence came they?" John's reverent an- 
swer was : *' My lord, thou knowest." 

Then came the explanation of the won- 
drous sight : ^' These are they which come 
out of the great tribulation, and they 
washed their robes, and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are 
they before the throne of God ; and they 
serve him day and night in his temple : 
and he that sitteth on the throne shall 
spread his tabernacle over them. They 
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any 
more ; neither shall the sun strike upon 
them, nor any heat : for the Lamb which 
is in the midst of the throne shall be their 
shepherd, and shall guide them unto foun- 
9 



Hn ^rtbulatlon 

tains of waters of life : and God shall wipe 
away every tear from their eyes." 

If we would be in that heavenly throng, 
we must have been in, and must have come 
out of, great tribulation. It is a mission of 
tribulation to fit us for that fellowship of 
the redeemed, and for that loving ministry 
of God in his eternal presence. In view of 
this truth, shall we welcome, or shall we 
shrink from, tribulation as it comes to us, 
or as we come to it, in the providence of 
God? 



lO 



II 
UrieD bs Uvoubles 

There are few words of common use 
that are less understood in their scope and 
force than the word " trouble/' The Bible 
tells us that ''man that is born of a woman 
is of few days, and full of trouble;'' and 
that " man is born unto trouble, as [surely 
as] the sparks fly upward." In our ordi- 
nary speech we refer to our troubles, and 
to the troubles of others, with the widest 
and most varying range of meanings. 

Sometimes we speak of being troubled 
with indigestion or rheumatism ; again 
of being troubled by poor servants, or by 
house-cleaning and by painters and by 
dressmakers ; again, of our children's 
troubles with their playmates or their 
studies ; of a good woman's trouble with 
her intemperate husband ; of labor troubles, 
and financial troubles, and political troubles, 
II 



Hn ^vtbulation 

in the community at large. Yet again we 
say, in a general way, that a certain man 
has a great deal of trouble, or that a cer- 
tain other man seems remarkably free 
from trouble — perhaps that ^' he never 
knew what trouble was." What is included 
in this term ''trouble," that makes it ap- 
plicable to all these different spheres of 
personal or social experience ? 

In the Bible more than twenty different 
Hebrew words, and a dozen Greek ones, 
are all rendered by the word " trouble " 
in our ordinary English version. These 
words include the idea of labor, pressure, 
agitation, weariness, fear, sorrow, wicked- 
ness, and various kindred emotions and 
experiences. The root idea of the Eng- 
lish word which comprehends them all 
is : a whirling disturbance ; that state of 
being which makes one whirl round and 
round instead of standing quietly, or of 
going straight ahead. That is trouble : to 
be in such a whirl that you can neither 
rest composedly nor move forward un- 

12 



waveringly. Trouble, then, is an effect, 
and not a cause; it is the inside result 
rather than the outside pressure; it is a 
condition of being, instead of the fact of 
any particular incidents of life. 

Trouble is different from tribulation, 
while it is often associated with it. Tribu- 
lation is not in itself trouble. Trouble 
does not necessarily come with tribula- 
tion. One man is troubled without being 
in tribulation ; another man is in tribula- 
tion, without being troubled. More than 
sixty times in the Old Testament the same 
Hebrew word is interchangeably translated 
'' trouble " and '' tribulation." The same 
process that lacerates and presses may 
result in the separation of the precious 
from the worthless, or it may simply cause 
a mental disturbance and an unsteadiness 
of being. Just here is where the nature 
of trouble is liable to be lost sight of; and 
because of its misconception those about 
us are misjudged as to the extent and 
severity of their experiences of trouble. 
13 



In Cnlnilation 

We say, sometimes, that children know 
nothing of real trouble. There could 
hardly be a greater mistake than this. 
Xo troubles are more real than children's 
troubles — whatever be their cause. Chil- 
dren's hearts ache, and children's hearts 
sometimes break, with their varied troubles. 
Many a little child has dehberately put 
an end to his despairing life, because of 
trouble that vras terribly real to him, how- 
ever trifling its occasion ma}' have seemed 
to others. 

We may sneer at a loss which troubles 
a child, as perhaps only " a broken toy ; '' 
but that toy. with its associations, and 
with the investiture of his imaginings, 
may have been a veiy dear and sacred 
thing to the child. Can we even say that 
our standard of values is always superior 
to the child's? Do we now put no false 
estimates on toys? We m.ight call a loss 
which wellnigh broke our hearts " a shat- 
tered idol," instead of ''a broken toy;" 
but the consequent trouble would be no 
H 



Zxic^ bi2 troubles 

greater, nor would it be any more real, to 
us, in the one case, than to the child in the 
other. 

After all, it is the childish troubles which 
are severest to most of us — especially to 
those who are most sensitive, and hence 
are capable of keenest suffering. What is 
it which just now troubles you above all 
things else? Is it that which the world 
would say was worthiest of your first 
thought, and ought to occasion you most 
anxiety ? 

And what was it that made you so un- 
happy, so unfitted you for the practical 
duties of life, a year ago, and again only 
last month ? Does it seem to you now 
quite as important as it then appeared? 
Can you even remember exactly what it 
was ? Whether you can or not, and what- 
ever you think of the reasonableness of it 
as a cause of trouble to you, you cannot 
question that your trouble over it was very 
real at the time — as real as any trouble you 
ever had, or ever could have. Trouble 
15 



Hn TObulation 

is none the less real for being childish and 

unreasonable. 

Not what comes to us, but the light in 

which we look at it, settles the question 

whether we have trouble over it or not. 

The coarser -grained man shrugs his 

shoulders, when he is sharply rebuked by 

a companion, and says laughingly, " High 

words break no bones." He is not troubled 

by anything of that sort. The man of finer 

grain reads in the countenance of a friend 

whom he loves and honors a censure of 

some careless word of his, and his heart is 

pierced with pain. To him 

" A clouded face 
Strikes harder than an angry blow." 

And he has trouble day and night until 
that face is bright again. One man loses 
a few hundred dollars, and it troubles him 
sorely. Another finds all the slow accu- 
mulations of years swept away in an hour, 
and it brings him no serious sense of loss; 
yet he is in constant trouble because of 
his loved son's misdoing. Is it for either 
i6 



XLxicb bi2 n:rouble9 

of those men to measure the force of the 
other's trouble? 

What folly for one of us to say, '^That 
man has no trouble to be compared with 
mine, because he has no experience that 
duplicates mine'M What if he is free from 
such physical pain as racks your frame? 
Are you sure that he would not rather 
be in physical pain until the day of his 
death, than endure the trial of his re- 
morseful memories ? What if he seems 
supplied wath all these sources of comfort 
— in family and property and popular favor 
— the lack of which is the cause of all your 
trouble ? Can you say that he would not 
have felt less keenly the death of those 
dearest to him, and the loss of property 
and popular favor, than he feels the bitter 
betrayal of a trusted friend, or the failure 
to be true and noble on the part of one to 
whom he had given the highest place in 
his heart, as a lofty ideal ? 

Troubles that are slightest often show 
most prominently, while troubles that are 
17 



Hn ^Tribulation 

severest are least manifest. The troubles 
of those who call loudest for sympathy 
may be troubles that deserve little regard 
from others. On the other hand, persons 
who say no word of complaint to their 
fellows, and who would fain repress every 
sign of suffering of soul, are perhaps those 
whose constant cry of heart to God is : 
" Give us help from trouble ; for vain is 
the help of man." 

Ah, how little we can judge of the 
hidden troubles, past and present, of our 
fellows, by the calm exterior and the un- 
troubled appearance which they present 
to us ! Troubles that have been met as 
tribulation, with its true mission to the suf- 
ferer, do not leave the appearance of trouble 
on the outer man. That firm-set face, 
which seems to show a hard or a cold 
nature, may represent a constant inner 
struggle to be firm. That glow of holy 
beauty, on a countenance that impresses us 
as saintly, may come from the light of the 
refiner's fire which is burning day and 
i8 



XLxic^ b^ XLxonblCB 

night in the heart below. Those cheerful 

words and smiles, that appear to be only 

the overflow of a glad and undisturbed 

heart, may be the rich harvest from seeds 

which had not been quickened unless they 

died, and were not fruitful except as they 

were nourished from hidden graves. 

It is this thought that Lucy Larcom 

phrases so beautifully : — 

" They said of her, * She never can have felt 
The sorrows that our deeper natures feel : * 

They said, * Her placid lips have never spelt 
Hard lessons taught by pain : her eyes reveal 
No passionate yearning, no perplexed appeal 

To other eyes. Life and her heart have dealt 

With her but lightly.' — When the Pilgrims dwelt 
First on these shores, lest savage hands should 
steal 

To precious graves with desecrating tread, 
The burial-field was with the plowshare crossed. 
And there the maize her silken tresses tossed. 

With thanks those pilgrims ate their bitter bread, 
While peaceful harvests hid what they had lost. 

— What if her smiles concealed from you her 
dead ? " 

Or again as Charles Kingsley puts it : 

'* How many sweet and holy souls, who 

19 



Hn tirlbulation 

look cheerful enough before the eyes of 
man, yet have their secret sorrows. They 
carry their cross unseen all day long, and 
lie down to sleep on it at night ; and they 
will carry it perhaps for years and years, 
and to their graves, and to the throne of 
Christ, before they lay it down ; and none 
but they and Christ will ever know what it 
was." Such souls are in tribulation through 
their troubles. They are purified by the 
trial of troubles. Other souls are merely 
troubled by their trials. They gain noth- 
ing by being sore pressed and disturbed. 

Trouble is not on the surface. Trouble 
is not alike to all. Trouble is not to be 
measured by one man for another. There 
is a basis of truth for any one of us in the 
negro refrain : 

*' Nobody knows de trouble I has : 
Nobody knows but Jesus." 

Each soul knows its own trouble — and only 
its own. It is not for us to expect that 
others can measure our trouble ; nor have 
we the ability or the right to pass upon 
20 



theirs. We cannot understand the cause 
or the extent of the whirl in their hearts 
that makes it seem as if the very founda- 
tions of the earth were being swept away ; 
nor can they reahze how we can have quite 
as severe trouble from quite a different 
cause. 

But to them and to us there should be 
comfort at every such time in the thought 
that One who fully knows our trouble 
sympathizes with us in it all most tenderly, 
and is able and ready to bring us safely 
through it. 

" God is our refuge and strength, 
A very present help in trouble. 
Therefore will not we fear though the earth be 

removed, 
And though the mountains be carried into the 

midst of the sea ; 
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, 
Though the mountains shake with the swelling 

thereof. 
The Lord of hosts is with us. 
The God of Jacob is our refuge." 

He who knows our trials and troubles, 
and is touched with the feeling of our in- 

21 



Hn ttrtbulation 

firmities, speaks words of peace to every 
storm-tossed soul when he says lovingly : 
" Let not your heart be troubled : believe 
in God, believe also in me." Believing in 
Jesus as our Friend, our Saviour, our Life, 
we have rest and peace in him. We are 
no longer troubled by our troubles. 



22 



Ill 
UesteD b? jfire 

Some of the best things in the world are 
the results of fire processes, or are pfoof 
against the destroying power of fire. Dia- 
monds among gems, and granite among 
rocks, were called into being by the pro- 
cesses of fire. Gold and silver, for which 
so many are ready to sell their lives and 
souls, are indestructible in the trial by fire. 
Character, which is worth more than silver 
and gold and diamonds, and which is 
firmer and more durable than granite, can- 
not be at its best without fire-testing, and it 
is proof against fire. 

Men have recognized in fire a symbol of 
Deity, and have bowed before it in reverent 
worship, because of its power to give 
warmth and life in the universe. Yet the 
destructive power of fire is terrible, and 
men shrink from it in dread. The cry of 
23 



Hn tribulation 



" Fire ! " arousing one from his sleep at 
night, in his home on the land, or in a ves- 
sel in mid-ocean, strikes terror to the 
stoutest heart ; and he who looks at the 
smoking ruins of a great city swept away 
by the flames in a few brief hours, shrinks 
from the thought that " the fire itself shall 
prove each man's work of what sort it is." 

But fire is not wholly destructive. Fire 
is one form of tribulation. Its testing 
power is a separating power. It purifies 
and refines while it seems to consume ; 
and that which comes through the flames 
unharmed, is worth all the more for its 
freedom from that which fire could burn 
away. The promises of God to his chil- 
dren who are brought to the test of fire in 
the furnace of affliction and suffering, are, 
in themselves, with all their words of com- 
fort and peace, a suggestion of the truth 
that those whom God loves most dearly 
shall have their tribulation in the midst of 
the flames. 

God does not say to the child of his 
24 



G:e0teD b^ Site 

love, '* Thou shalt never be put to the test 
of fire;" but he does say, ''When thou 
walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be 
burned ; neither shall the flame kindle 
upon thee." It was the three men who 
were true to God in the midst of an idola- 
trous people, whom God permitted to be 
bound hand and foot and cast into a burn- 
ing fiery furnace, in the plain of Dura. 
Those loved ones of God were not kept out 
of the flames, but they were kept while in 
the flames. The fire loosed and burned 
away their bonds, and they walked in free- 
dom in the midst of the fire, and had no 
hurt ; and there walked, in loving com- 
panionship with them, one whose aspect 
was of heavenly form and bearing. 

Those men must, in their very natures, 
have had a shrinking from the test of fire ; 
and they may have wondered why God 
permitted them to be called to it. But 
when they were in the midst of the flames, 
because they would not shirk their duty, 
they had such rest and peace there as they 
25 



Hn tlrtbulatlon 

could have found nowhere else in the 
universe ; and when they emerged from 
the furnace, it was found that *' the fire had 
no power upon their bodies, nor was the 
hair of their head singed." And it has 
been the same with God's dear children 
ever since that day. Often those who love 
God and whom God loves are called to serve 
God in the burning fiery furnace ; and how- 
ever they may shrink from entering the 
flames, they find rest and peace in the fire's 
center. As Miss Havergal reminds us : 

" They say there is a hollow, safe and still, 
A point of coolness and repose 
Within the center of a flame, where life might dwell 
Unharmed and unconsumed, as in a luminous 
shell ; 
Which the bright walls of fire inclose 
In breachless splendor ; barrier that no foes 
Could pass at will." 

Let us joy, therefore, as we enter the fur- 
nace of trial, in the thought that we can be 
nearer to God in the center of the flame 
than we could be in the open air on a bed 
of roses ! 

26 



XLcetc^ b>^ Site 

Every child of God, in appreciation of 
this truth, can say, with JuHus Sturm, as he 
feels the fiercest heat of this furnace flame : 

" Pain's furnace-heat within me quivers, 
God's breath upon the fire doth blow, 
And all my heart in anguish shivers, 

And trembles at the fiery glow ; 
And yet I whisper, ' As God will ! ' 
And in his hottest fire hold still." 

The choicest treasures of personal 
character are wrought out and manifested 
by means of the furnace fires of pain and 
suffering. Those who help us in times of 
our fiery trial are those who have them- 
selves been helped in and by the fire. 
Much has been purged out of their natures, 
and that which remains is more valuable 
because of the loss. 

As Bushnell says, of those on whom the 
flames of suffering have been doing their 
w^ork : '' It will be seen that in all cases of 
long-continued and very severe suffering, 
there is a look of gentled, perhaps we 
should say broken, feeling. The gait is 
27 



In tribulation 

softer, the motions less abrupt, and there 
is a lingering moan, we fancy, in the voice, 
and a certain dewy tremor of tear in the 
eye. It is as if the man's wilfulness had 
been fined, or at least partly broken. He 
may be a personal stranger, yet we see by 
all his demonstrations that he has come 
out of the fire, and is tempered to the sway 
of many things he cannot resist. Thus it 
is that a great many of the best and hoHest 
examples of piety are such as have been 
fined and finished in the crucible of pain." 

Yet it is not a weakened or a merely 
passive nature that is thus gentled and sub- 
dued. Only a strong nature can stand the 
fiery trial successfully, and right endurance 
is far more than mere submission. As 
Bushnell says, again : ^* Passivity is not the 
true lesson ; for a bulrush bowing to the 
wind could take that lesson as well. 
Neither is it to brace up all our force in a 
tough strain of stoical energy, refusing to 
feel. But it is to set our whole activity 
quietly, manfully, down upon the having 
28 



learned well what our fiery teacher wall 
show us. To wade through months - of 
pain, to spin out years of weariness and 
storm, can be done triumphantly only by 
such as can resolutely welcome the disci- 
pline their nature wants. And the man or 
woman w^ho has learned to suffer well has 
gotten the highest of mortal victories." 

A keen observer of character can say, 
with Miss Procter, of the signs of the re- 
fining fire upon any one of us : 

** I shall know by the gleam and glitter 

Of the golden chain you wear, 
By your heart's calm strength in loving, 

Of the fire they have had to bear. 
Beat on, true heart, forever ; 

Shine bright, strong golden chain ; 
And bless the cleansing fire. 

And the furnace of living pain." 

How the Apostle's words of comfort, in 
view of this truth, come home to those of 
us who are in the furnace of trial just now! 
'' Beloved, think it not strange concerning 
the fiery trial among you, which cometh 
upon you to prove you, as though a 
29 



Hn ^tribulation 

strange thing happened unto you : but 
insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ's 
sufferings, rejoice ; that at the revelation of 
his glory also ye may rejoice with exceed- 
ing joy." " Wherein ye greatly rejoice, 
though now for a little while, if need be, ye 
have been put to grief in manifold tempta- 
tions, that the proof of your faith, being 
more precious than gold that perisheth 
though it is proved by fire, might be found 
unto praise and glory and honor at the 
revelation of Jesus Christ." 

There is comfort, even beyond the 
thought of the refining power of the fur- 
nace over the gold by its separation from 
the debasing dross. The very dross and 
ashes and slag of the furnace may, through 
the skill of the chemist, become a means 
of beauty, or of cleansing, or of fertilizing, 
and thus of life. Out of the slag of the 
iron-furnaces in the Basic process steel 
works, there is manufactured an odor- 
less phosphate which is claimed to be of 
exceptional value as a fertilizer. As its 
30 



Zested b^ Jfixc 

enthusiastic discoverers claim : '' The odor- 
less phosphate makes plump wheat, full 
ears of corn, solid oranges, juicy peaches, 
and fills all the fruit with luscious, deli- 
cately flavored juices that are peculiar to 
its odorless character. It is odorless as 
wood ashes, pure as mountain water, 
healthy as a sunbeam, a quick and vigor- 
ous fertilizer." Ashes enter largely into 
the composition of cleansing soaps, and a 
brilliant diamond has been brought into 
being out of intensified charcoal. 

So, also, in the spiritual furnace, even 
though there be no residuum of pure gold 
as an outcome of the fire-testing process 
when we are subjected to it, the very dross 
of our natures may, by the power of the 
divine Chemist, be made a means of ser- 
vice to others in the Lord's earthly domain. 
Our characters, when thus tested, may fail 
to show that strength and vigor and pre- 
ciousness which command admiration and 
inspire courage on the part of those who 
observe us. Yet if we accept the furnace 
31 



Hn c:ribulation 

as the place in which we are to serve and 
honor our Master, the spirit displayed by 
us, even in our weakness and failure, may 
be a means of enriching other lives more 
precious than our own. " The base things 
of the world, and the things that are de- 
spised," doth '' God choose, yea, and the 
things that are not, that he might bring to 
nought the things that are," and that he 
might secure a blessing to all. 

When we find ourselves in the furnace 
of trial, as sooner or later we are sure to, 
even if we are not already there, let us un- 
derstand that the furnace is the best place 
for us, and that its fires are for our testing. 
If there is gold in our characters, that gold 
will come forth refined. If there is in us 
nothing but dross, that very dross may be 
made a means of fuller life to others, when 
we have seemed to fail. '' Our God whom 
we serve is able to deliver us from the 
burning fiery furnace," or to use us for his 
honor as our lives pass away in the flames. 

32 



IV 
J5^ IpruniuG ant) pressing 

In Oriental thought the vine is a symbol 
of fruitful life. The palm needs to be 
planted near living waters, and the olive 
gives much of its strength to wood and 
leaf But the vine can gain sustenance 
on the rocky hillside, while its whole being 
goes out in its fruitage. It is through many 
tribulations that the fruit of the vine comes 
to perfection ; and it finds its value under 
pruning and pressing. 

The '^ fruit of the vine " is more than 
wine; it is a synonym of outpoured life. 
*' Life " and " blood " are interchangeable 
words in the sacred record, and the ^' blood 
of the grape," as ''the fruit of the vine," 
is the ''life" of the vine and the grape. 
From time immemorial men have cove- 
nanted with one another by drinking one 
another's blood, or by drinking together 
3 33 



tn ^Tribulation 

from a common cup of "the blood of the 
grape," or '^the fruit of the vine." 

When, therefore, our Lord gave to his 
disciples of "this fruit of the vine" as his 
very " blood " he made them partakers ]of 
his very life. And when he told them that 
he was "the true vine," and they were " the 
branches," and that their value was meas- 
ured by their fruit-bearing power, he taught 
them the truth of truths concerning spirit- 
ual life and Christian service, and the gain 
of improved tribulation. 

As branches of the true vine we must 
be constant fruit-bearers, or we have no 
right to draw nourishment from the parent 
stock. And the fruit we bear is not for 
ourselves, but for others. Only as we give 
of our lives are we entitled to live. As 
W M. L. Jay reminds every one of us : 

'' Nor for thine own, 
But others' weal, thou bearest fruit ; 
Thy gain is in thy deeper root, 
In twining branches stronger grown 
And richer store of sap to thrill 
Into new fruitage year by year.'* 

34 



X^ pruning an^ preaslng 

And we cannot give of our life's blood to 
others except through suffering. Hence, 
to be a living disciple of Jesus is to be un- 
ceasingly a sufferer in the service of Jesus. 
Ugo Bassi's famous sermon in the hos- 
pital, on '' The Vine and its Branches," 
has the lesson for us all from the teachings 
of our Lord, in his assignment to us of our 
place and our service. 

" Let us consider now this life of the vine, 
Whereof we are partakers : we shall see 
Its way is not of pleasure nor of ease. 
It groweth not like the wild trailing weeds 
Whither it willeth, flowering here and there ; 
Or lifting up proud blossoms to the sun, 
Kissed by the butterflies, and glad for life. 
And glorious in their beautiful array ; 
Or running into lovely labyrinths 
Of many forms and many fantasies, 
Rejoicing in its own luxuriant life. 

•' The flower of the vine is but a little thing, 
The least part of its hfe ; — you scarce could tell 
It ever had a flower ; the fruit begins 
Almost before the flower has had its day. 

" And as it grows, it is not free to heaven, 
But tied to a stake ; and if its arms stretch out, 

35 



Hn tTrlbulation 

It is but crosswise, also forced and bound ; 

And so it draws out of the hard hillside, 

Fixed in its own place, its own food of life ; 

And quickens with it, breaking forth in bud. 

Joyous and green, and exquisite of form, 

Wreathed lightly into tendril, leaf, and bloom. 

Yea, the grace of the green vine makes all the land 

Lovely in springtime ; and it still grows on 

Faster, in lavishness of its own life ; 

Till the fair shoots begin to wind and wave 

In the blue air, and feel how sweet it is. 

" But so they leave it not ; the husbandman 
Comes early, with the pruning-hooks and shears, 
And strips it bare of all its innocent pride, 
And wandering garlands, and cuts deep and sure, 
Unsparing for its tenderness and joy. 
And in its loss and pain it wasteth not ; 
But yields itself with unabated life. 
More perfect under the despoiling hand. 
The bleeding limbs are hardened into wood ; 
The thinned-out bunches ripen into fruit 
More full and precious, to the purple prime. 

"And still, the more it grows, the straitlier bound 
Are all its branches ; and as rounds the fruit, 
And the heart's crimson comes to show in it. 
And it advances to its hour, — its leaves 
Begin to droop and wither in the sun ; 
But still the Hfe-blood flows, and does not fail, 
All into fruitfulness, all into form. 

36 



asis ©tuning anD preeetng 

" Then comes the vintage, for the days are ripe, 
And surely now in its perfected bloom 
It may rejoice a little in its crown. 
Though it bend low beneath the weight of it, 
Wrought out of the long striving of its heart. 
But ah ! the hands are ready to tear down 
The treasures of the grapes ; the feet are there 
To tread them in the wine-press, gathered in ; 
Until the blood-red rivers of the wine 
Run over, and the land is full of joy. 

" But the vine standeth stripped and desolate, 
Having given all ; and now its own dark time 
Is come, and no man payeth back to it 
The comfort and the glory of its gift ; 
But rather, now most merciless, all pain 
And loss are piled together, as its days 
Decline, and the spring sap has ceased to flow. 
Now is it cut back to the very stem ; 
Despoiled, disfigured, left a leafless stock, 
Alone through all the dark days that shall come. 
And all the winter-time the wine gives joy 
To those who else were dismal in the cold ; 
But the vine standeth out amid the frost ; 
And after all, hath only this grace left. 
That it endures in long, lone steadfastness 
The winter through : — and next year blooms again : 
Not bitter for the torment undergone. 
Not barren for the fulness yielded up ; 
As fair and fruitful towards the sacrifice 
As if no touch had ever come to it 
37 



Hn G;rtbulatton 

But the soft airs of heaven and dews of earth ; — 
And so fulfils itself in love once more. 

*'And now, what more shall I say ? Do I need here 
To drav/ the lesson of this life, or say- 
More than these few words, following up the text : — 
The vine from every living limb bleeds wine ; 
Is it the poorer for that spirit shed ? 
The drunkard and the wanton drink thereof; 
Are they the richer for that gift's excess ? 
Measure thy life by loss instead of gain ; 
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth ; 
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice ; 
And whoso suffers most hath most to give." 

If we share with Christ in " the fruit of 
the vine," we must be "partakers of Christ's 
sufferings;" and we can be glad accord- 
ingly ''with exceeding joy." The *' fruit 
of the vine " is outpoured life, and he 
who bears much fruit must suffer much. 
"Through many tribulations we must enter 
into the kingdom of God," as sharers of the 
life of the True Vine. 



38 



V 

improving Cbastisement 

'* Chastisement " is not a pleasant word, 
any more than tribulation, as we are ac- 
customed to think of it and to use it. 
Chastisement is ordinarily connected in our 
minds with the idea of displeasure and 
severity on the part of him who employs 
it, and with suffering and recoil on the 
part of him who is its subject. It is, 
indeed, not altogether separated in our 
thoughts from the idea of punishment for 
transgression, an idea in which the element 
of justice is far more prominent than that 
of love. 

We speak of ourselves or of others as 
being '' sorely chastened," and there is a 
suggestion in our tone, at such a time, of a 
call for pity on behalf of the chastened one. 
We are all of us ready to agree with the 
Apostle so far as to say, ''All chastening 
39 



tn tiribulation 

seemeth for the present to be not joyous, 
but grievous;'' and he who is least subject 
to chastening is, in our ordinary thought, 
most highly favored of God. 

Yet "chastisement" is, in its root-idea, 
*' correction" as a means of improvement. 
It is akin to instruction and guidance and 
training. It is, indeed, a phase of tribu- 
lation, for the purpose of refining and 
purifying. It represents the work of the 
father, the teacher, the trainer, the guide. 
Only because he who trains and guides 
must persistently correct the errors of him 
whom he has in charge, does the idea of 
chastisement become coincident in our 
minds with the idea of severity on the part 
of him who administers it, and with recoil 
on the part of him to whom it is admin- 
istered. 

In primitive thought the '^ rod " is a 
symbol of authority, and its use is synony- 
mous with punishment; but, with improved 
conceptions of parental authority and gov- 
ernment, the use of the rod is recognized 
40 



Umproving Gbaetisement 

as for the loving guidance and control in 
the correct way of the one under training. 
The rod, like the flail, is designed to beat 
out, or to thresh out, the evil and the 
worthless from the good and the precious. 
Hence chastisement is looked upon by us 
as something to be dreaded or as some- 
thing to be welcomed, as something to be 
endured with patience or as something to 
be rejoiced over in gladness, according as 
we perceive the immediate discomfort of 
it to ourselves, o.r the wisdom and love of 
its prompting. 

It makes all the difiference in the world 
whether we look at the bitter mixture 
which our physician prescribes for us in a 
critical hour of disease, or at the loving 
physician who prescribes it as a means of 
our rescue from death and our help toward 
health ; at the hard lessons set us by the 
teacher in our early school-days, or at the 
wise and considerate teacher who is seek- 
ing thereby to develop and train our 
minds into the fullest exercise of their 
41 



Hn ITtibulatton 

best powers ; at the corrections and denials 
that come to us from a watchful parent, or 
at the devoted parent to whom we are dear 
as life itself, and who is thus evidencing 
his unfailing affection and his purpose of 
our completest training. So, also, it makes 
all the difference in the world whether we 
look at our providential chastisements as 
chastisements, or at the loving Father who 
is proving his love by these chastisements. 
If we look at the chastening, it seemeth 
to be ''not joyous, but grievous." If we 
look at God as our loving Father, we can 
be sure that whatever he sends to us is 
the best thing possible for us ; and there- 
fore his chastenings are to be welcomed as 
a fresh proof of his affection. Thus it is 
that Eliphaz, one of the friends of Job, 
says : 

** Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth : 
Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the 
Almighty." 

Thus it is that Solomon approves the pro- 
verbial injunction : 

42 



Umptovtufl Cbaetisemcnt 

" My son, despise not thou the chastening of the 
Lord ; 
Neither be weary of his reproof : 
For whom the Lord loveth he reproveth ; 
Even as a father the son whom he deUghteth." 

And thus it is that the Apostle expands 
and re-emphasizes this truth of the ages : 
" God dealeth with you as with sons ; for 
what son is there whom his father chas- 
teneth not ? . . . We had the fathers of our 
flesh to chasten us, and we gave them 
reverence : shall we not much rather be in 
subjection unto the Father of spirits and 
live? For they verily for a few days chas- 
tened us as seemed good to them ; but he 
for our profit, that we might be partakers 
of his holiness," 

Chastening improved is a means of spirit- 
ual cultivation and refinement. Why, then, 
should we speak of a man as ^^ sorely chas- 
tened,'' when we would not speak of him as 
''sorely cultivated," or as ''sorely refined"? 
It is not because the primitive idea of 
"chastisement" suggests a more painful 
43 



Hn tiribulatlon 

process than that of "cultivation," which 
includes the tearing up of the surface with 
the plowshare, or than that of '^ refine- 
ment," with its thought of being cast into 
the furnace of fire ; but it is rather because 
in the case of ''refinement" and of ''cultiva- 
tion " we think of the satisfactory results of 
the process, through its improving, while 
in the case of " chastisement " we center 
our thoughts on the process itself 

Here is where we wrong our loving 
Father, when we give the chief place in our 
minds to the chastisements which he sends 
to us in love, instead of thinking of the 
end that he lovingly has in view in his 
sending those chastisements upon us, or 
yet better of him who has sent them as 
evidences of his love. 

There is a lesson to us all in the teach- 
ings, on this point, of Rabia, a Muhamma- 
dan saint of a thousand years ago. James 
Freeman Clarke has translated that lesson 
from the Persian, through the German of 
Tholuck : 

44 



Improving Gbaetteement 

" Rabia, sick upon her bed, 
By two saints was visited, — 

*' Holy Malik, Hassan wise ; 
Men of mark in Moslem eyes. 

" Hassan said, * Whose prayer is pure 
God's chastisements will endure.' 

" Malik, from a deeper sense 
Uttered his experience : 

*' ' He who loves his Master's choice 
Will in chastisement rejoice.' 

*' Rabia saw some selfish will 
In their maxims lingering still, 

" And rephed : ' O men of grace ! 
He who sees the Master's face 

" ' Will not in his prayer recall 
That he is chastised at all ! ' " 

As a matter of fact, we give quite too 
much prominence to chastisements as 
chastisements in our Father's deahngs with 
us. We take it upon ourselves to divide 
our experiences into two great classes, — 
of blessings and chastisements, — when in 
reality all chastisements are in themselves 
blessings, while, in a larger sense, all bless- 
45 



In ^Tribulation 

ings are chastisements. We are often in- 
clined to pride ourselves on enduring 
chastisements bravely; and if, forsooth, we 
come to rejoice in chastisements as surely 
sent for our good, we think that we have 
made highest attainment in grace, whereas 
it ought to be so that the transcendent 
love of our Father should cause us to 
lose sight of all distinctions between those 
of his ways that please us and those that 
give us discomfort. 

It is well for us when we can say, while 
wincing under providential chastisements : 
*' Though he slay me, yet will I wait for 
him.'' It is better when we are so far 
along toward the right that our heart-cry 
in the very valley of death's shade can be, 
*' Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." 
It is best of all when our thoughts are so 
full of the loving Father himself that our 
grateful words spring forth : '' My Father, 
thou art the guide of my youth." *' Whom 
have I in heaven but thee ? and there is 
none upon earth that I desire beside thee." 
46 



Improvtnc} CbastlBcment 

The submission of self to God is good ; the 
glad surrender of self to God is better ; the 
utter forgetfulness of self in the soul-fiHing 
thought of God is best of all. 

How unfair it would be for a son to tell 
others of the trials to which his loving 
father's course had subjected him, and of 
his fidelity in enduring them all ! Nor 
would it materially better the case if the 
son were all the time telling of the various 
reproofs and corrections he had had from 
his father, even though he admitted that 
all these had proved of benefit to him. A 
true son of a true father is so full of 
thought of his loving father as a loving 
father, that his mind cannot be dwelling on 
the unpleasant phases of his experience as 
the recipient of that father's love. 

So ought it to be with every child of the 
All Father; the glad thought of the Father 
himself is the cause of rejoicing above all 
memory of any special way of the Father 
that has caused temporary sadness or glad- 
ness. Who of us shall repine because of 
47 



Hn G:ribulation 

his Father's chastenings ? Who, indeed, 
shall even rejoice because of those chasten- 
ings, in comparison with his rejoicing in the 
thought of the Father who has sent them 
in wisdom and love ? Let every one of us, 
on the contrary, so improve his chastenings 
that he may be ready to say to that Father : 

** When darkness gathers round my path, 
And all my song-birds cease to sing, 
I know it is not sent in wrath, — 
'Tis but the shadow of thy wing ! 

*' When dancing sunbeams round me shine, 
And Joy and Peacefulness embrace, 
I know the radiance is not mine, — 
'Tis just the brightness of thy face ! " 



48 



VI 

Suffering as a H)utg 

What is '' suffering " ? " Suffer " is from 
the Latin szid, ''under/' ^nd /era, ''to bear;" 
" to bear under/' '' To suffer '' means 
variously, " to feel or bear what is painful, 
disagreeable, or distressing ; '' " to un- 
dergo,'' " to endure without sinking," " to 
support bravely or unflinchingly ; " " to 
sustain ; " " not to sink under." " Suffer- 
ing " is the act or condition of enduring. 
The root-idea of " suffering " is, that the 
sufferer is underneath, and the burden is 
on him. To suffer is to continue under- 
neath, instead of slipping out from under ; 
to endure as a bearer of the distressing 
burden, instead of shirking or evading the 
disagreeable task of its bearing. 

Suffering is never, in itself, desirable. 
No phase of tribulation is in itself attrac- 
tive, and suffering is reckoned as one 
4 49 



Hn trribulatton 

phase of tribulation. Suffering by its 
very nature forbids the possibihty of its 
being attractive. The constant temptation 
of a sufferer is, to be rid of his suffering if 
he can be; and the inevitable inclination 
of one who is not a sufferer, is to avoid 
assuming any proffered burden which is 
sure to prove a cause of suffering. Yet 
suffering is often a duty ; its seeking is 
often the only course of right to a per- 
son ; and its endurance is often the test 
of one^s manhood, or one's womanhood. 
The discomforts of suffering need no em- 
phasis to any son or daughter of Adam. 
The duty of suffering is not sufficiently 
apprehended even by many a disciple of 
Him who was made^ " perfect through suf- 
ferings." 

A longing for ease and repose is of 
man's innermost nature. The desire to 
escape from suffering is as instinctive as 
the love of life. The cry of '' the sweet 
psalmist of Israel," in his hour of trial, is 
the cry of every pain-tried soul : 
50 



Sutterincj ae a Duti2 

" And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove ! 
For then would I fly away, and be at rest. 
Lo, then would I wander far off, 
And remain in the wilderness : 
I would hasten my escape 
From the windy storm and tempest." 

And there is no invitation of David's 
Greater Son which is fuller of comfort 
and hope than his assuring words: ^' Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." Rest is 
promised, even if it be not yet attained. In 
the thought of this assurance, every be- 
lieving soul joins with the Apostle in his 
ejaculation : ^' Let us therefore fear, lest, a 
promise being left us of entering into his 
rest, any of you should seem to come short 
of it." 

But just what this divinely promised rest 
is, and when it is to be attained to, is a 
question about which different minds have 
very different understandings. The com- 
moner thought is, that the rest which one 
has a right to seek after, and to delight in, 
is an absolute freedom from trial and pain ; 
51 



Hn XTrtbulatton 

exemption from suffering, even if at the 
cost of exemption from feeling. 

*' There is no joy but calm,'* 

the poet sings. And in his imagining of 
calm : 

" How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream. 
With half-shut eyes ever to seem 
Falling asleep in a half-dream ! 
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light. 
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the 
height." 

The form of religion which even to-day 
is perhaps accepted by more persons than 
are believers in any other one form of 
religion, has its very basis on the assump- 
tion that the chiefest desire of the human 
soul is, and should be, an escape from 
" suffering,'* and that as suffering is insepa- 
rable from consciousness, therefore an end 
of consciousness is the soul's highest hope. 
Thus the Booddhists, who include one- 
third or more of the human race, have, as 
their conception of the heavenly state, an 
unconscious and an eternally dreamless 
52 



Suffering aa a Butis 

repose, which they call Nirwaiia. Only 
thus and there, as they consider it, can it 
be truly said of any soul : 

" All is ended now, the hope, the fear, the sorrow, 
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied 

longing ; 
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of 

patience." 

Only of those who are in that state can 
they conceive it as being said truly : 
'' Blessed are the dead, . . . that they may 
rest from their labors." And there is no 
little similarity between the innermost 
thought of many of the ease-lovers in the 
realms of Christianity, and the many more 
ease-lovers who are in the domain of 
Booddhism. 

Whatever may be the longing of the 
natural heart, and whatever may be the 
teachings of the most widely popular of 
false religions, in the direction of a selfish 
ease-giving rest, the whole spirit of the 
gospel of Jesus breathes of the gain, and of 
the duty, of suffering ; while all the gospel 
53 



Hn G:rtbulatton 

precepts and all the gospel illustrations in 
this sphere indicate that the " rest " which 
is given on earth to the Christian believer 
is a rest while in suffering, rather than a 
rest from suffering. '' It behooved Christ 
to suffer ; " '' leaving you an example, that 
ye should follow his steps." And ^' as ye 
are partakers of Christ's sufferings," even 
" so also are ye [partakers] of the com- 
fort " which is in and from Christ, in his 
triumph over evil. 

He who promises ^^ rest " to all who will 
come to him, promises them '' tribulation " 
also ; and with tribulation there comes suf- 
fering. Christ's conditional promise of 
eternal rest is, " He that endureth unto the 
end, the same shall be saved." Content- 
ment and endurance in suffering are the 
privilege and the duty of every true disci- 
ple of Jesus. 

As are the teachings of the gospel of 

Jesus, so are the teachings of the highest 

and noblest experiences of the children of 

men. There is a gain in suffering. True 

54 



Suttering aa a Butg 

rest is not in unthinking ease. Only- 
through prolonged endurance is there any- 
real attainment of a worthy soul-enjoy- 
ment. God sends us no gift with choicer 
possibilities in it than are enwrapped in 
suffering : 

" Though sharpest anguish hearts may wring, 
Though bosoms torn may be, 
Yet suffering is a holy thing ; 
Without it, what were we ? " 

The rest which best refreshes the sufferer 
is the rest of a worthy purpose in suffering. 

** 'Tis loving and serving the highest and best ; 
'Tis onward, unswerving, — and that is true rest." 

True manhood will not cease, nor desire 
to cease, from continued and progressive 
action, at whatever cost that action must 
be maintained. True manhood is virtue. 
Virtue cannot be selfishly dormant. 

" Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the 

wrong — 
Nay, but she aimed not at glory, no lover of 

glory, she : 
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be." 

Without conflict, endurance, and triumph 
55 



Hn ^tribulation 

there is no high development of personal 
being. Undisturbed ease cannot secure a 
sturdy and vigorous manhood. Sainthood 
attained through triumph over evil is more 
than angelic life that never experienced 
moral gain by battlings with sin. A saved 
soul has joy that can never be known by a 
soul that was not in peril from the arch- 
enemy of souls. As Miss Hamilton says : 

*' Better to be driven 
By adverse winds upon the coast of Heaven, 

Better to be, 
As it were, shipwrecked upon its rocks 

By fiercest shocks, 
Than to sail on across a waveless sea 

Into a Christless immortaHty.** 

Even among the Booddhists, there are 
millions upon millions who recognize the 
low selfishness of a soul's desire to find 
repose in an unconscious isolation of use- 
less being, while '' the whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth in pain,'' with a 
need of sympathy and help in endurance ; 
and the very theogony of Booddhism has 
been, in certain regions, revised, to meet 
56 



Suffering ae a Dut^ 

the higher and nobler conception of a more 
generous spirit, and a worthier aim of ex- 
istence. 

Among the Chinese, many years ago, the 
Booddhists brought forward a new divinity, 
*• whose highest merit was that, having 
reached the edge of Nirwana, she decHned 
to enter, preferring to remain where she 
could hear the cries, and succor the calami- 
ties, of those who were struggling with the 
manifold evils of a world of change." When 
the repose of an unconscious oblivion was 
already before her, she chose to suffer on 
in sympathy and in unselfish endeavor, in 
order to be a blessing to others, rather than 
to find an ignoble personal relief in the 
neglect of duty to other sufferers. " Tsz*- 
pei Kwan-yin," she is called, or "the merci- 
ful goddess who hears the prayers " — of 
sufferers. 

In the temples of China the image of 
Kwan-yin finds a place, where '' she is rep- 
resented with a thousand hands ready to 
succor human suflTering ; " or, again, as 
57 



Hn tiribulation 

holding in her arms a little babe, as illus- 
trative of the mother-spirit of unselfish 
tenderness. And there is a lesson for us 
in this imperfect suggestion from Bood- 
dhism, which corresponds with the more 
beautiful exhibit of its truth in the gospel 
of Jesus ; a lesson of the duty of suffering 
on for the sake of others, as well as for 
our own sakes, even when the choice would 
seem to be ours of an escape from suffer- 
ing, into a selfish and an undisturbed re- 
pose. 

The Booddhistic idea of suffering, as 
something essentially and always evil, and 
as something to be evaded at any and every 
cost, has quite too much tolerance in the 
minds of many who call themselves Chris- 
tians. The comfort of a halfway *^ Nir- 
wana " has its selfish attractions to not a 
few who are fully familiar with the teach- 
ings of the gospel of Jesus. 

The man who commits suicide because 
he is tired of his sufferings, is a selfish 
and cowardly shirker of his plain duty 
58 



Sufferlna ae a ®uti5 

of continued endurance in those suffer- 
ings. He who takes to drink to drown 
his sorrows, is similarly unfaithful in his 
duty of suffering. The husband or the 
wife who seeks a sundering of the mari- 
tal tie, merely because every breath of 
that married life is another breath of 
suffering, is unmistakably faithless to the 
promised duty of being true, in better or in 
worse, until death itself should part that 
tv/ain-one. So, again, with parent and 
child, with teacher and scholar, with friend 
and friend. How^ common it is to hear, as 
a proffered excuse for an abandonment of 
endurance in that sphere, that endurance 
there is a cause of constant suffering ! 

There can even be found those who 
count themselves true men, who will 
shamelessly tell of their turning away in 
selfishness from wife or child in some hour 
of their loved one's personal pain, because 
they '' never could endure the suffering of 
such an hour." And, again, there are sel- 
fish women who say that they are ready to 
59 



Hn ^tribulation 

give money for the sick or the poor, but 
they cannot visit personally in the homes 
of suffering, because that would cause 
them suffering. The Booddhistic '' Kwan- 
yin " may, if she will, remain in the realm 
of suffering, and may use her thousand 
hands in a ministry of sympathy and of 
relief; but these so-called Christian dis- 
ciples would selfishly plunge into the ob- 
Hvion of Nirwana, in order to shirk their 
appointed duty of suffering. 

Ought Chinese Booddhism to have such 
a seeming advantage as this over any phase 
of our more exalted Christianity ? 



60 



VII 
struggling to Xive 

Death, and not life, is the order of nature. 
Any person or thing that Hves, lives in 
spite of the mere '' laws of nature/' Life 
is supernatural, rather than natural. Only 
as a power or a force additional to and 
above mere material nature is continually 
operative against the '' laws " of that nature, 
does life, as life, exist. Life is an observed 
fact in the universe; but life is not the 
result of any known "law of nature," nor 
is its origin or source to be accounted for 
by the operation of any such law. The ex- 
istence and the continuance of life is extra- 
natural, or supernatural, and involves an 
incessant struggle with and mastery of the 
"laws of nature." 

It is much the same in the realms of 
the physical, of the intellectual, and of 
the spiritual life. In the lower order 
6i 



Hn tribulation 

of physical nature, as in the higher order 
of spiritual nature, the beginning of life is 
the introduction of an element that cannot 
be accounted for by the operation of any 
known law of nature; and the progress of 
life in all its forms and phases is in opposi- 
tion to and in subjugation of the forces 
that were before operative in the realm of 
matter. 

''Biology," or the science of life, recog- 
nizes the existence of Hfe as a fact which 
it is unable to account for; and it deals 
with the method of life's workings, rather 
than with life's source and origin. That 
which biology begins with as a recognized 
but an unaccountable fact in nature, is an 
extra-natural or supernatural force in the 
universe, which exists by bringing into sub- 
jection and ministry the workings of the 
recognized laws of nature as apart from 
that force. 

The very earliest forms of vegetable life, 
in the lichen and the fern, exhibit an ele- 
ment of aspiration, working against the 
62 



Strucjgltna to %ivc 

general law of gravitation, and making 
subservient to its purposes inert matter of 
various kinds, — thereby changing the order 
and direction of material nature. And this 
process goes on all the way along in the 
vegetable world, until its illustration is 
found in the uprearing of the lofty oak by 
means of this supernatural force of life, 
which lifts the nourishing sap to the extent 
of forty-five pounds to a square inch in 
eveiy hundred feet of elevation, in defiance 
of the attraction of gravitation and of the 
oppositions of the wind and the rain, save 
as they are made tributary to this aspiring 
supernatural force in the universe. Up 
toward the light and the sky, aw^ay from 
the darkness, the rock, and the mud, vege- 
table life aspires, and will not be held back 
and down. 

With animal life the element of volition 
is added to that of aspiration in the con- 
stant struggle against the general laws of 
nature. Sentient life not only aspires, but 
wills to bring into subjection to its use that 
63 



Tin tribulation 

which would otherwise bar its progress or 
forbid its existence. The bird selects the 
material for its nest, and carries it up to a 
chosen spot in defiance of the law of gravi- 
tation, arranging it there in such a way as 
to guard it from the destructive sweep of 
the winds, and from the immediate opera- 
tion of tendencies to decay, while planning 
for the reproduction and continued pres- 
ervation of life in the realm of bird nature. 
The beaver deliberately wills to check the 
growth of a selected tree, and to use a 
portion of it for the stoppage of the waters 
in their flow, and for the making of a home 
for itself and its offspring. 

In every phase of animal life there is a 
struggle for the mastery over lower forms 
of life, in order to maintain its own exist- 
ence, and to make progress in the line of 
its volitions ; and only as life consents to 
battle and subdue the forces of mere nature, 
can it fulfil its mission or be true to its best 
aspirations. 

It is nature's business to destroy life; 
64 



Stru^Glincj to %\vc 

and the world of nature does not owe a 
living to any person or thing. It is hfe's 
business to fight in order to live; and un- 
less life can subdue nature, and hold it in 
subjection, it will come into bondage to 
nature; and the bondage of nature is death. 
All life is a ceaseless struggle, and where 
there is no struggle there is no real life. 

The highest form of life is spiritual life ; 
and in this realm, as in the lower realms, 
the laws of nature which are operative in 
the universe tend to hold down, and to 
pull back, and to retard, and to destroy ; 
and only as spiritual life will struggle for 
the mastery of all opposing forces, and 
make them tributary to its aspiring voli- 
tions, can it make progress, or even con- 
tinue to exist. Spiritual life is not an 
evolution in the order of nature's develop- 
ment, but it is a gift to man from the Source 
of all life. He v/ho is a possessor of spirit- 
ual life as a supernatural force, has power 
for the batthng and the overcoming of all 
the opposings of nature in the physical, the 

5 65 



tn G:rtl)ulatton 

intellectual, and the moral realms; but if 
he ceases to battle, he ceases to overcome, 
and he is already succumbing to death as 
the constant enemy of life. 

In the old Egyptian '' Book of the Dead," 
lost souls are spoken of as the '' Children 
of Failure;" and any soul that will not 
struggle in spiritual life to final success, is 
simply a child of failure. Living is insep- 
arable from struggling. To cease strug- 
ghng is to cease living. 

StruggHng to live is the primal form of 
tribulation assured in this world to every 
child of God and follower of Jesus. The 
obstacles to peaceful life which beset us 
continually on every side, pressing in upon 
us to impede our progress and to give us 
distress and anguish as we move forward, 
are inevitably incident to our human exist- 
ence in a world below the highest plane of 
life eternal. We should never wonder at 
the call here below to this struggle to live. 
We should rather welcome it as an earnest 
of our progress upward and of our final 
66 



Stru^Gltn^ to %ivc 

triumph over death. The thought of 
every one of us can be with Isaac Watts, 
in this ceaseless struggle to live in the 
midst of our tribulations. 

" Must I be carried to the skies 
On flowery beds of ease, 
While others fought to win the prize, 
And sailed through bloody seas ? 

" Sure I must fight, if I would reign. 
Increase my courage, Lord ; 
I'd bear the toil, endure the pain, 
Supported by thy word." 

'' The last enemy that shall be abolished 
is death," and as long as death exists it is 
the enemy of life, and a struggle with it 
is the sign and cost of living. 

The one perfect Life lived here on earth 
was a life of constant struggHng; and that 
life was made perfect, or complete, through 
suffering. He who would be a partaker 
of that life in its glorious triumph, must 
also be a partaker of that life in its con- 
stant suffering and struggling. There is 
no other road to final victory than the road 
67 



In tribulation 

that was trod by His bleeding feet. This 
lesson is beautifully taught in the words 
of Miss Anna E. Hamilton : 

•* As once towards heaven my face was set, 
I came unto a place where two \vays met ; 
One led to Paradise, and one away, 
And, fearful of myself lest I should stray, 

I paused, that I might know 
Which was the way wherein I ought to go. 
The first was one my weary eyes to please, 
Winding along through pleasant fields of ease, 
Beneath the shadows of fair branching trees. 

* This path of calm and solitude 
Surely must lead to heaven ! ' I cried, 

In joyous mood. 

* Yon rugged one, so rough for weary feet. 
The footpath of the world's too busy street. 
Lying amid the haunts of human strife, 
Can never be the narrow way of life.' 

But at that moment I thereon espied 
A footprint bearing trace of having bled, 
And knew it for the Christ*s, so bowed my head, 
And followed where he led." 



68 



VIII 
Hn tbe Sbabow ot H)eatb 

Death, when it comes to us or to our 
dear ones, is a reahty that must be met ; 
but the shadow of death cast on the path- 
way of Hfe, as an indication of an event 
approaching, is a cause of gloom that in- 
cludes forebodings of evil beyond all that 
has yet come to us. Hence it is that the 
projected shadow of death is, in many a 
case, even more of a trial than death itself. 
And the shadow of death is over us all, 
and always. 

*^No sooner do we begin to live in this 
dying body," says St. Augustine, ''than we 
begin to move ceaselessly towards death;" 
and, as w^e are reminded by Bishop Hall, 
*'our cradle stands in our grave." From 
our very birth the shadow of death is over 
us, and there is never a moment in our 
earthly journeyings when the sky of our 

69 



Hn tribulation 

life is wholly free from the gathering clouds 
of death. At times the light is brighter, 
and again the shadow is heavier ; and thus 
it is that our spirits are gladdened or sad- 
dened by our apparent condition for the 
hour. 

In the hope of life, 'Sve walk by faith, 
not by sight;" in the thought of death, 
we walk by fear, rather than by sight. 
For the quickening of our faith, and for 
the subduing of our fears, we have need of 
help from Him who has shared in our 
human experiences, and has triumphed 
over all that imperils us, that he *' might 
deliver all them who through fear of death 
were all their lifetime subject to bondage." 
And through that help we can be stedfast 
unto the end. 

The shadow of death over ourselves is 
to most of us a cause of less anxiety than 
the shadow of death over our dear ones. 
It is easier to trust God for ourselves than 
to trust him for those whom we love more 
than life. It is even easier to meet death 
70 



In tbe Sba^ow ot Deatb 

as a reality when it takes from us the most 
precious treasures of our heart, than it is 
to bear up courageously and with hope 
when the shadow of death seems to be 
darker than usual about their pathway. 
In watching over our loved ones when 
they are sick, and in giving play to our 
fears lest they should be sick, or should 
otherwise suffer harm, we ''die daily." The 
anticipation of evils that may come to 
them transcends the reality of the evils 
which they actually endure. And so it is 
that the shadow of death as it falls on the 
pathway of others is a cause of gloom to 
us beyond the darkness of death itself. 

A child complains of a sore-throat; at 
once the anxious mother thinks of diph- 
theria, and for weary hours, until all symp- 
toms of disorder have passed away, that 
mother gropes wearily in the shadow of 
death, which is none the less gloomy for 
being only a shadow. Her child's hoarse 
cough in the night, or a show of rash on 
his neck by day, at another time, brings 
71 



Hn tribulation 

that same mother to a new experience of 
the shadow of death through imagined 
croup or scarlet-fever. Every stage of a 
long sickness, of one who is dear to us, is 
a new stage of progress through the gloom 
of death's shadow, even though the tired 
traveler is to come out again into the light 
of life beyond. The delay of a letter from 
an absent one ; or the report of a disaster 
in a distant region, where that absent one 
may be; or the mere thinking over the 
possibilities of peril to him from unseen 
dangers, — ^brings the shadow of death close 
about a loving heart that waits and watches 
in uncertainty as to the hour of death's 
certain coming. 

Many of us are walking in the shadow 
of death; all of us know something of its 
gloom. To us each and all there comes 
the proffer of guidance and cheer from 
Him who has passed through a lifetime of 
death's shadow, and who knows what of 
its imaginings have any basis of reality, 
and what are needless fears. 
72 



Hn tbc SbaDow of Beatb 

" Christ leads us through no darker rooms 
Than he went through before.'* 

" For we have not a high priest that cannot 
be touched with the feeling of our infirmi- 
ties ; but one that hath been in all points 
tried like as we are." Therefore every one 
of us is privileged to say: ''Though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me : 
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." 
In the deepest gloom of this valley, as we 
grope through it with those who are dear- 
est to us, we can hear the ring of our Shep- 
herd's staff, as he finds the way for us ; and 
we can gain comfort from the touch of his 
rod, even while the darkness of the hour 
shuts him out from our sight. 

Miss Havergal's song of cheer is to us 
all, even when the shadow of death is on 
our path. 

"He who hath led will lead 
All through the wilderness ; 
He who hath fed will feed ; 

He who hath blessed will bless ; 

73 



In a:ribulation 

He who hath heard thy cry 

Will never close his ear ; 
He who hath marked thy faintest sigh 

Will not forget thy tear. 
He loveth always, faileth never, 
So rest on him, to-day, forever ! 

** Then trust him for to-day, 

As thine unfaihng Friend, 
And let him lead thee all the way, 

Who loveth to the end. 
And let the morrow rest 

In his beloved hand ; 
His good is better than our best. 

As we shall understand, — 
If, trusting him who faileth never, 
We rest on him, to-day, forever ! *' 



74 



IX 

Malting as a H)utg 

Every old soldier knows that the hardest 
thing in connection with a battle is the 
waiting under fire for orders to move. To 
push forward in the fight is exciting work, 
so exciting as to call out all the energies 
of a man, and to keep his mind full with 
thoughts of that which he has to do for the 
moment. He has no time then to think 
of danger, or to speculate upon chances. 

But when a man has to stand, or to He, in 
line, with the bullets whistling about him, 
or with the sound of the battle in his ears, 
and with nothing to do in the nature of 
action or of effort, he is sure to be thinking 
of danger, and fearing the results of delay, 
and to be suffering from the strain upon 
his nerves, which is all the intenser because 
there is nothing for his muscles to do. 

As it is with the soldier in physical war- 
75 



Tin ^nbulation 



fare, so it is with the soldier in Hfe's battles 
of every sort. Waiting under fire is harder 
than moving forward in the thick of the 
fight. Yet waiting is a large part of a 
man's duty in life, when he would fain be 
actively doing something. 

Waiting for the hour of a school ex- 
amination, waiting for an expected caller at 
one's home, or waiting for the hour when 
one may make a call of pleasure or of im- 
portant business, waiting for one's turn at 
an after-dinner speech or for a part in an 
athletic contest, waiting for an expected 
train at a railway station or waiting for the 
time when one may take a train homeward, 
— all these are ordinary experiences in 
waiting. They tax the patience and the 
energies of the young and the old, and they 
are hard to bear. 

A city business man, who had not in- 
dulged in the luxury of vacations, was 
induced to take a season of rest in the 
country. It did not suit his active mind, 
and when he was asked by a friend how it 
16 



IDGlaiting a6 a 2)utK? 

seemed to him, he answered, '' I feel all the 
time as if I were waiting on the corner of 
the street for a car to come along." Many 
another man can appreciate that state of 
mental strain. 

To wait on a sick-bed, or to wait by one, 
is a sore trial for the sufferer in body or 
in mind. And to wait, at a distance, for 
the slow passage of the hours or the days 
while disease is running its course with a 
loved one, and while there is nothing to do 
but to wait, is one of the severest tests of 
endurance to which human nature is called. 
Waiting for bad news, or waiting in doubt 
as to the nature of the coming news, is in 
many a case a greater strain on the mental 
powers than meeting the news at the worst 
when it does come. Yet just because 
waiting is so hard, waiting is the one duty 
of the hour to be endured bravely and in 
hope, when there is nothing to do but to 
wait. " If I could only do something, 
instead of waiting in utter inaction," says 
the longing soul. But you cannot do any- 

n 



Hn G^rtbulatton 

thing, except to wait ; therefore you must 
be patient and courageous in waiting. 

Patience is endurance in waiting at the 
call of God, and such patience is enjoined 
and commended as a Christian virtue and 
as a Christian duty. " In your patience ye 
shall win your souls," said our Lord to his 
disciples, as he foretold their trial, when 
distress would be in the army-encompassed 
city which was their home, and there 
would be nothing for them to do but to 
wait patiently for the end. In our patience 
we shall win our souls, when a like duty is 
ours in a like state of distress. 

'' Ye have need of patience," says the 
Apostle, " that, having done the will of 
God, ye may receive the promise." All 
of us have promises on which we may rest, 
for ourselves and for our dear ones, in the 
hour of the most anxious waiting ; and we 
have need of patience, that, when we have 
done all we can do, we may wait to receive 
the fulfilment of those promises. 

The Bible is full of injunctions to wait- 
78 



TlHlaitinQ ae a Duti^ 

ing, and of assurances of hope and faith in 
waiting. 

** Wait on the Lord : 
Be strong, and let thine heart take courage ; 
Yea, wait thou on the Lord." 

" I will wait for the Lord, that hideth his face." 

" The Lord is good unto them that wait for him." 

" It is good that a man should hope and quietly 
wait for the salvation of the Lord." 

*' I am weary with my crying ; my throat is dried ; 
Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God." 

The promised blessing may to our thought 
tarry ; but it will not, as God sees it, delay. 

" Though it tarry, wait for it ; because it will surely 
come, it will not delay." 

" I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, 
And in his word do I hope. 
My soul looketh for the Lord, 
More than watchmen look for the morning, 
Yea, more than watchmen for the morning." 

Patient waiting must be w^aiting in hope. 

We have no right to be without hope, as 

we wait the issue of God's ordering. ^' If 

we hope for that which we see not, then do 

79 



Tin Crtbulation 

we with patience wait for it." Patient, 
hopeful waiting is hard work, when it is 
the only work possible to us in an emer- 
gency. But patient waiting is in its time 
the highest duty of a faithful soul. Others 
may have active service for the hour, in 
the plan of God. 

'* They also serve who only stand and wait." 



80 



X 

Moping tbrougb ifaitb 

Faith in God is recognized by every 
child of God as a primal duty ; but hope 
in God is not always seen to be a factor in 
right faith. It is easy to admit that God's 
will should be accepted as final concerning 
ourselves and our dear ones ; but it is not 
so easy to look forward v/ith confidence to 
the outcome of those dealings as sure to 
be bright and delightful. Yet hope is as 
truly a duty as is faith ; and faith in order 
to be at its best must have its active ele- 
ment of hope. 

We are '' saved through faith ; " we *' live 
by faith ; " we '' walk by faith ; " and '^vith- 
out faith it is impossible to be well-pleas- 
ing unto God." But what is faith with- 
out hope ? " Faith is the assurance of 
things hoped for ; " '' by hope were we 
saved," through '* Christ Jesus our hope; " 
6 8i 



Hn tribulation 

and as God's dear children we are to 
*' abound in hope, in the power of the Holy 
Ghost." 

Faith looks upward. Hope looks for-' 
ward. Faith rests everything on God. 
Hope expects everything from God. Faith 
is sure that God will do right. Hope is 
sure that God will send good. Faith is the 
basis of hope ; but without hope faith is 
imperfect and unsatisfying. '^ Why art thou 
cast down, O my soul ? and why art thou 
disquieted within me ? " says the Psalmist. 
'' Hope thou in God : for I shall yet praise 
him, who is the health of my countenance, 
and my God." " We through the spirit," 
says the Apostle, " by faith wait for the 
hope of rightousness ; " and ''if we hope 
for that which we see not, then do we with 
patience wait for it." 

It is not enough to believe in God as 
over all, controlling, directing, restraining, 
according to his wisdom and goodness ; it 
is needful also to expect good at his hands 
continually. When things look dark to 
82 



Moping tbrou^b Jfaitb 

us, we have a right to hope for the Hght. 
There is such a thing as a despairing faith ; 
and there is also such a thing as a gladly 
expectant faith. Faith without hope is 
despairing ; faith with hope is gladly ex- 
pectant. Hoping through faith is a Chris- 
tian believer's duty. 

Many a Christian believer is willing to 
bow his head in submissiveness of faith, 
who is not ready to lift up his head in the 
joy of hope. There are, indeed, those who 
seem to count it meritorious to face the 
worst as a possibility, rather than to hope 
for the best to the uttermost. Herein is an 
error. A child of God is never to sorrow 
as others who have no hope. A disciple 
of Christ is never to live as if he had no 
hope and were without God in the world. 
Abraham was a man of faith, and for that 
very reason he was a man of hope. " With- 
out being weakened in faith" because of 
the hopelessness of his case, he was a man 
*^ who in hope believed against hope ; " and 
so he became the father of the faithful and 
83 



Hn ^tribulation 

the father of the hoping. If we are his 
spiritual children, we shall ever be hoping 
in faith. 

In time of sickness or of other peril, in 
the hour of saddest uncertainty, and of 
severest tribulation, we are not to fear for 
the worst, but we are to hope for the 
best. Knowing that sorer trials than we 
have ever known may be immediately be- 
fore us in the providence of God, we can 
also know that God may have surprises of 
good for us beyond our extremest longings 
or our fondest anticipations. Why should 
we think that God will be readier to dis- 
appoint us, than to meet our wants ? 

If we trust God as we are entitled to, we 
shall look expectantly for that which is in 
the line of our requests as his children, so 
long as his refusal to answer our prayers is 
not explicitly made known to us; and when 
we have been disappointed in one thing, 
we ought to be all the more hopeful that 
another disappointment is not to be ours. 
If, indeed, disappointments are in store for 
84 



IHoping tbrou^b Ifaitb 

us, let us not suffer from them before they 
must be met. But if the joy of our hearts 
is to be granted to us, let us not have 
grieved God by refusing to believe that he 
would send it as we desired. 

There is a practical side to this matter 
as well as an ethical one. Not only is it 
wrong to expect disappointment, rather 
than cheer, from our all-loving Father, in 
his orderings in our behalf; but if we are 
without hope of success in a struggle we 
are making, we are unnerved for that strug- 
gle, and are liable to bring on troubles that 
would not otherwise have been ours. 

Hope is divinely called *' an anchor of 
the soul," an anchor ''both sure and sted- 
fast, and entering into that which is within 
the veil ; " and if we shp the cable of 
that anchor, we shall lose the good things 
that are in store for those who cling to it 
to the last. " Where there is no hope there 
can be no endeavor," says Dr. Johnson ; 
and Coleridge tells us that 

" Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve." 
8s 



Hn tTribulation 

Hope is always in order for a child of 
God. No matter what God has done for 
us, or is doing, or seems likely to do, we 
ought to expect better things and yet better 
in the opening future. In the eternal pres- 
ent there " abideth faith, hope, love, these 
three," and he who has both faith and love 
needs also hope. 

" Above the dusky air 

Shine the bright steps of hope, 

And I, thbugh from the lowest stair, 

Would mount to heaven's cope. 

** Thus yearning, I arise. 
But heavily I move : 
Alas that with such wistful eyes 
My limbs so feeble prove ! 

** But can the morning fail, 

Though dawn be dark and wild ? 
Rejoice, O soul ! thou shalt prevail ; 
Of light thou art the child. 

*' Thy hope, it shall be made 
Thy strength, if it be bright ; 
Thy limbs, so heavy in the shade, 
Grow lighter in the light." 



86 



XI 

Bn&uttng in Mope 

Attainment is a hope rather than a pos- 
session, and enduring and striving in hope 
is the normal condition of him who would 
attain. In all practical life, he who would 
have the highest good must strive after it 
through difficulties, and over obstacles ; 
and, in the teachings of the Old Testament 
and of the New, spiritual rest and peace are 
found as a result of perseverance through 
tribulation, not in exemption from tribula- 
tion. 

The voyage of life is over a tempestuous 
sea, and he who would find a haven of rest 
must endure the tossings and perils of that 
voyage to its end. The promise of the 
glad time when ''there shall be no more 
sea " is yet unfulfilled. Hope can picture 
to us the joys which are to follow the safe 
ending of this voyage ; but hope cannot 
87 



Hn tlribulation 

lessen the perils that are to be passed be- 
fore the thither-shore of the stormy sea is 
finally reached. It is comfort in trial, not 
freedom from trial, that the Psalmist re^ 
joices over: 

" God is our refuge and strength, 
A very present help in trouble. 
Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do 

change. 
And though the mountains be moved in the heart 

of the seas ; 
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, 
Though the mountains shake with the swelling 

thereof 
There is a river, the streams whereof make glad 

the city of God, 
The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most 

High." 

This thought of the Psalmist has been 
the comforting thought of many a tempest- 
tossed believer from his day to ours. It 
was in the mind of one of God's children 
in the stormy days of our Civil War, dur- 
ing a peculiar experience on the southern 
coast of the United States. A government 
steamer was seeking an entrance to the 
88 



j6nDunncj In Mope 

harbor of St. Augustine, from the ocean 
side. A severe storm had prevailed along 
the coast, and increased the diifficulty of 
crossing the bar which stretches across the 
face of Anastasia Bay. It was in the early 
morning, after a night of gloom. 

The wind was still blowing a gale. 
Huge waves lifted themselves on every 
side of the cumbersome steamer, and rolled 
on to break in sullen roar along the sandy 
beach on either hand, or to boil and foam 
on the wide-extended hither shoal. As the 
unwieldy steamer was headed toward the 
coast, it rolled and swayed and creaked, 
as though its every beam and brace were 
giving way. On its careening, slippery, 
sea-swept forward deck stood a group of 
army officers intently watching the inci- 
dents of the perilous passage. Great flocks 
of sea-birds swooped and circled above the 
watchers with loud warning cries; and the 
snowy crests of the waves on the confront- 
ing bar seemed to shake defiance at the 
venturesome voyagers, forbidding their 
89 



Hn C^ribulatton 

progress. Yet there was firm hope on the 
part of all who waited and watched for the 
issue of that struggle, because of their firm 
trust in him to whom their lives had been 
committed. 

Far forward, in the very eyes of the 
steamer's bow, clinging to an iron-girt 
stanchion, stood the sturdy, weather-beaten 
old pilot of the port. Bronzed and grim, 
with bared head, his gray locks streaming 
in the wind, his face set as a flint to the 
coast before him, he noted with keen eye 
the famiHar guide marks of the tortuous 
channel, and with deep, strong voice 
sounded out his words of command to the 
helmsman on the upper deck, who heeded 
his call as though it were divine. 

Before that pilot, and before those anx- 
ious watchers, over the bar, out of the 
reach of ocean storms, on the far shore 
of the sheltered bay, there lay, in the 
morning sunlight, the quaint and quiet old 
Spanish city, its outlook made glad by 
streams of a quiet river on either hand; 
90 



lEnDurlng in Mope 

and none on that steamer's deck had doubt 
that they would soon have rest in that 
tempting retreat ; for the pilot whom they 
trusted was 

" A very present help in trouble." 

Every one of us is called to a like expe- 
rience with this on his troubled life-voyage. 
There are storms above and about us. 
There are waves and shoals before us. The 
craft on which we journey is in ceaseless 
peril. But every one of us can have trust 
in the divine Pilot who guides and guards 
us. And the heart-cry of every anxious 
soul can be, with good Dean Alford : 

" One who has known in storms to sail 

I have on board ; 
Above the raging of the gale 

I hear my Lord. 
He holds me when the billows smite, 

I shall not fall. 
If sharp, 'tis short; if long, 'tis light; 

He tempers all. 
Safe to the land, safe to the land, — 

The end is this ; 
And then with him go hand in hand 

Far into bliss." 
91 



In G:ribulation 

Not the absence of dangers, but the hope 
of deliverance out of dangers, is the com- 
fort of God's loved ones. As a godly 
writer has said: ''God did not take up the 
three Hebrews out of the furnace of fire, 
but he came down and walked with them. 
He did not remove Daniel from the den of 
lions ; he sent his angel to close the mouth 
of the beasts. He did not, in answer to 
the prayer of Paul, remove the thorn in the 
flesh; but he gave him a sufficiency of 
grace to sustain him." 

The promise of God to every trustful 
believer is : '' When thou passest through 
the waters, I will be with thee; and through 
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: 
when thou walkest through the fire, thou 
shalt not be burned; neither shall the 
flame kindle upon thee. . . . Fear not; for 
I am with thee." '' He that endureth to 
the end the same shall be saved." 



92 



XII 

Uoiling Mopelessl^ 

'* Hopelessness " is only another term 
for " despair," the two words being really 
synonymous ; and we are prone to feel that 
despair, or hopelessness, deprives effort of 
any possibility of good. Our thought, 
indeed, is, with the poets, that 

'* Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; " 
that 

" The miserable have no other medicine 
But only hope ; " 

that 

" The wretch condemn' d with life to part 
Still, still on hope relies, 
And every pang that rends the heart 
Bids expectation rise ; " 

and that 

*' Hence the most vital movement mortals feel 
Is hope, the balm and life-blood of the soul." 

Yet, as a matter of fact, there is a constant 

call for hopeless or despairing effort in this 

93 



tn a:rtbulation 

world as it is ; and the truth stands out, in 
spite of our feeling, that there is often a 
direct gain from hopeless or despairing 
endeavor, beyond and above all gain which 
is possible where hope is an element of the 
struggle. At the best, however, hopeless 
effort is a phase of tribulation. 

It is a pitiful sight to look into the 
vacant eyes of a hopeless idiot, or into the 
glaring countenance of one hopelessly 
insane. It is hardly less pitiful to look 
down upon the tired face of one hopelessly 
racked with pain, which must continue 
with increasing force while life lasts ; or to 
watch the hopeless wasting away of a form 
which is under the power of an incurable 
disease. It is sad to see an aged parent a 
helpless object of hopeless effort, with 
paralyzed limbs or deadened brain, living 
on only as a burden and a tax in a home 
which was once Hghtened and gladdened 
by the presence that is now a source of un- 
intermitted discomfort. There is a gloomy 
aspect to those institutions for the in- 
94 



trolling IHopelesal^ 

curable, which actually close their doors 
against any who do not utterly despair, or 
who are not utterly despaired for ; so again 
there is to those wards for the hopeless 
cases in other institutions, where diseases 
of the body or the mind are objects of 
treatment and of ministry. 

But, with all the sadness or gloom of 
such an outlook, would any of us say that, 
because in these instances there is no hope 
of cure, there is therefore no gain in the 
loving ministry which is demanded for 
them ? Could we question that, apart 
from any possibility of result to those who 
are cared for tenderly, there is a gain, un- 
speakably great, to those Avho thus minister 
in loving tenderness to the necessities of 
the hopeless objects of depairing endeavor 
— a larger and a nobler gain through the 
very fact of the hopelessness of the effort 
demanded ? 

Hopeless endeavor brings finer possibili- 
ties of unselfishness, in its immediate exer- 
cise, than can show themselves in effort 
95 



Hn a:ril)ulatton 

which is prompted and cheered by sub- 
stantial hope. So long as hope is an 
element of the struggle, there will be the 
thought of coming gain or reward as an 
incentive to correspondent action; but 
when hope is excluded, the chiefest induce- 
ment to struggle on in the Hne of loving 
ministry is the unselfish affection which 
makes such ministry in itself a delight. 
This it is that so often renders the de- 
pendent and helpless parent a new power 
for good, in the home where his hopeless 
needs are a means of evoking and develop- 
ing the truest and noblest traits of charac- 
ter in the children who are doing for him. 
This it is that causes many a hopeless 
invalid to be a center of light and joy in 
a home which is purified and cheered 
through the added necessity of forgetting 
self, and of living for one who can never 
rise up to return or requite this ministry of 
love. This it is that brings a spirit of sur- 
passing tenderness into the manner and 
ways of the best of those who attend upon 
96 



the incurable, or upon the hopelessly im- 
becile, in institutions where such cases are 
an object of special attention. 

When, in fact, every prompting is out- 
ward, and every incentive is away from 
self; when there is no possibility of attain- 
ment or of requital ; when the only gain 
which can be thought of is the gain of con- 
tinued doing in the line of hopeless en- 
deavor, — -the effort which is demanded 
cannot but be noble and ennobHng, and 
cannot but have its reward in the uplifting 
and the enlarging of the heart which is 
thus nobly exercised. 

We are not likely to undervalue the 
benefits of hope, but we are in danger of 
overestimating its advantages ; and it is 
well for us to consider that, unless we were 
sometimes called to hopeless endeavor, we 
should never know the highest gain which 
is possible from a generous and self-forget- 
ful ministry of affection. Hope even im- 
perils our spirit of restful contentment with 
w^hat we have, by tempting us to look away 
7 97 



Hn trrtbulation 

from present good, in longing expectation 
of better things to be attained to. Thus it 
is that hope is sometimes peace-destroying, 
that 

" Hope, eager hope, th'assassin of our joy, 
All present blessings treading under foot. 
Is scarce a milder tyrant than despair." 

In this light it is that hope may deceive us 
by its very truth, and that its surest lead- 
ing may be misleading. And here is the 
point of Carlyle's satire : 

'* What is hope ? A smiling rainbow 
Children follow through the wet ; 
'Tis not here — still yonder, yonder ; 
Never urchin found it yet." 

In this sense, hopeless effort may be more 
gainful than effort that is full of hope ; and 
the return of good may be largest through 
the very fact that no return is a possibility. 
And so we have reason to be grateful that 
there are calls upon us here to struggle 
hopelessly in loving ministry to others, and 
to be contented with what is already ours 
in that struggle 

98 



Coiling lHopelc60l^ 

Of course, it is only with reference to the 
Hfe that is, that any hopeless endeavor can 
be called for ; and it is only in loving 
ministry to our earthly fellows that a 
loving ministry can ever be in hopeless- 
ness ; for all God-ward love is full of hope, 
and is sure of both reward and return 
beyond its uttermost giving or deserving. 
And it is because there is something of 
God-likeness in a love which goes out and 
goes on with no hope of return, that all 
hopeless ministry of love is so ennobling 
and so enriching, and that its gains tran- 
scend the gains of any love that wins 
return. 

Love seeking and finding return is very 
beautiful ; it is one of earth's brightest 
blessings. But love which loves on with- 
out thought or hope of return is still more 
beautiful ; it has a touch of Christ-likeness 
in its moral beauty. It is this of which 
Whittier reminds us : 

" Love is sweet in any guise ; 
But its best is sacrifice. 

99 



Hn ^Tribulation 

" He who giving does not crave, 
Likest is to Him who gave 
Life itself the loved to save." 

And Helen Hunt would have us know that 
this is ever the spirit of the truest, wor- 
thiest love : 

" When love is strong 
It never tarries to take heed 
Or know if its return exceed 
Its gift ; in its sweet haste no greed, 
No strifes, belong. 

" It hardly asks 
If it be loved at all ; to take 
So barren seems, when it can make 
Such bliss, for the beloved's sake, 
Of bitter tasks.'* 

And when a human love recognizes the 
fact that it is hopeless love, yet lessens not 
nor swerves because of its hopelessness, 
that love has added power in refining and 
purifying the heart which it fills ; and its 
giver has a gain beyond all that any return 
of love could bring to him. 

A mother's love is never more saintly, 
never nearer divine, than when she loves an 
loo 



unloving son hopelessly. And the highest 
reach of human friendship is where one is 
lovingly and loyally an unswerving friend, 
with never a possibility of love returned 
or of love comprehended as it is. " It has 
seemed to me lately more possible than I 
knew/' says Emerson, ''to carry a friend- 
ship greatly, on one side, without due cor- 
respondence on the other. Why should I 
cumber myself with regrets that the re- 
ceiver is not capacious ? It never troubles 
the sun that some of his rays fall wide 
and vain into ungrateful space, and only 
a small part on the reflecting planet. . . . 
Thou art enlarged by thy own shining.'^ 

It is in this enlarged power of loving 
that there is the largest gain from hopeless 
loving. Thus it is that the loving heart 
might even say with generous-hearted 
Rose Terry Cooke, in despairing content : 

" I give thee love as God gives light, 
Aside from merit or from prayer ; 
Rejoicing in its own delight, 
And freer than the lavish air. 

lOI 



tn Q;rtbulation 

"As earth pours freely to the sea 

Her thousand streams of wealth untold, 
So flows my silent heart to thee, 
Glad that its very sands are gold. 

** What care I for thy carelessness ? 
I give from depths that overflow, 
Regardless that their power to bless 
Thy spirit cannot sound or know." 

There are few things harder in this 
world than to love, or to minister lovingly, 
without a possibility of even that gain 
which comes from love recognized — where 
there is no hope of love returned. But 
there is hardly anything on earth nobler 
or more ennobling than just this hopeless 
ministry of love. It brings nothing back 
to the loving one, but it uplifts and en- 
larges the heart that thus loves ; and herein 
is the gain of gains through all rightly 
directed endeavor that seems to be hope- 
less endeavor. 



1 02 



XIII 

Jdcvcv (3mnQ 'dp 

The severest test of manhood is never 
found in bright times, but only in dark 
times. It is not the man who has success 
when others are doing well, but it is the 
man who keeps up his courage, and strug- 
gles on, when everybody else is wavering 
or going down, who is the hero in the 
sight of God and men. It is an easy mat- 
ter to make good time when both wind 
and tide are in one's favor, or when one is 
moving with the current ; but it requires 
character and skill and daring to make 
head in spite of opposing forces, or to work 
successfully against the current. 

Captain Paul Jones is taken as a type of 
the American naval officer in daring and 
persistency. In the terrible conflict be- 
tween his vessel, the Bon Homme Rich- 
ard, and the superior British man-of-war 
103 



In G^tibulation 

Serapis, when most of his guns were dis- 
abled, and nearly half of his men were 
killed or wounded, and a fire was raging 
in his hold, and his vessel was leaking and 
sinking, and his flag was shot away. Cap- 
tain Pearson, of the Serapis, called out 
to him to know if he had surrendered. 
'^ Surrendered ! " shouted back the intrepid 
American captain, in tones that brought 
victory out of defeat, ''why, I've just begun 
to fight ! " And he received the surrender 
of the Serapis in time to get his remaining 
men on board of her before his own little 
vessel sank out of sight. 

It was said of brave General Zachary 
Taylor that his success as a commander 
was attributable to the fact that he never 
knew when he was whipped, and that on 
more than one occasion he won a victory 
after he was fairly defeated. It is this spirit 
of the commander, on land or on sea, which 
keeps him up and keeps him at it, in spite 
of all opposings and all discouragements, 
and prevents his yielding to despair while 
104 



Ulever Giving lUp 

his life, or an atom of strength, remains to 
him, that marks the truly courageous man 
in any sphere of conflict, material, men- 
tal, or moral. He is the hero who never 
gives up. 

In athletic contests it is by no means the 
men who are most muscular, or who are 
best trained, or who have most of dash and 
enthusiasm, who win the larger number of 
tests of skill and endurance. But it is the 
men who will not stay defeated when the 
others get the advantage of them, who, 
when " pressed on every side," are " not 
straitened ; " who, when '^ smitten down," 
are '' not destroyed ; " v/ho, as the world 
phrases it, '' have most sand," or ** grit," or 
persistency, and who keep up and keep at 
it through defeat to final victory. 

In times of financial depression it is the 
man who sees his business shrinking, his 
expectations failing, his record of former 
difficulties and embarrassments tran- 
scended, his associates on every side giving 
way to the unexampled pressure, and who 
105 



%n a;ril)ulatton 

seems to himself, as well as to his fellows, 
to be in a hopeless pHght, who yet will not 
give up, but will keep up and keep at it 
without flinching or failing through the 
worst to the uttermost, who shows himself 
the hero in hard times, and who survives 
them, or goes under with them fighting to 
the last. In hard times, business-wise, cour- 
age is more than capital, faith is better than 
sight, and a brave heart is the truest wis- 
dom for the hour. 

There are moral conflicts sorer and more 
bitter than any contest of brawn or of brain, 
and in these conflicts it is the man who will 
not give up who alone endures unto the 
end, and therefore is saved. Loved ones 
whose very presence was a constant in- 
spiration to us have fallen from our side; 
strong arms on which we were accustomed 
to lean are now nerveless, and warm hearts 
whose every throb gave us cheer, no longer 
beat with life ; friends whom we trusted 
have failed us ; disappointment meets us 
where we had never until now looked with- 
io6 



lllever (Siving TOp 

out a sympathetic response; aids to our 
faith which were a strong support hitherto 
have given way as aids ; new temptations 
beset us, old hopes are no longer to be 
seen ; the very heavens above us are burn- 
ing brass, and the ground beneath us is a 
dreary sand waste, — how can we bear up 
against and through all these opposings ? 

Hope against hope is now our duty. 
The anchor of hope is within the veil, and 
our eyes cannot see it, but our cable holds 
us to it with an unfailing grip. If there is 
nothing for us to do but to endure in hope, 
let us hope enduringly. If we find our very 
soul tempted to give up, let us rebuke its 
discouragement and encourage its endur- 
ing. Let our cry to the last be : 

" Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? 
And why art thou disquieted within me ? 
Hope thou in God : for I shall yet praise him 
Who is the health of my countenance, and my 
God." 

'' Hope thou in God ! " In God is our 
hope, and while God lives there is no 
107 



Hn Q:ribulation 



reason for despair. God's Son, our 
Saviour, assures us that, although in this 
world we must have tribulation, we are 
always to be of good cheer, for he has 
overcome the world, and he is with us in 
all the days of our trial and conflict. It is 
his fight as well as ours. Let us never 
give up while he is over us, with us, and 
within us. As C. H. Zellar sings trium- 
phantly in tribulation : 

" My God with me in every place ! 
Firmly does the promise stand, 
On land or sea, with present grace 
Still to aid us near at hand. 
If you ask, * Who is with thee ? ' 
God is here — my God with me ! 

** No depth, nor prison, nor the grave, 
Can exclude him from his own ; 
His cheering presence still I have, 
If in crowds or all alone : 
In v/hatever state I be, 
Everywhere is God with me ! 

** In life, in death with him so near, 
Every battle I shall win ; 
Shall boldly press through dangers here. 
Triumph over every sin ! 
io8 



Tflcvct (3ivin5 IHp 

' What ! shall you a victor be ? ' 
No, not I, but God in me ! " 

Not when things look bright, but when 
all is gone except God and self, is the time 
to endure and be brave, and to evidence 
true manhood. Never to give up, but ever 
to keep up and to keep at it, is the duty and 
the test of heroism in times that are hard 
and in hours that are dark. 

When the battle is before and behind, 
when the enemy outnumbers us over- 
whelmingly, when his stronghold stands 
impregnable across our path, when defeat 
or death seems our only choice, then let us, 
in God's strength, rise to the issue as it is, 
and let our inspiring call, like Norman 
Macleod's, ring out in the gloom of night, 
for God's sake, for our fellows' sake, and for 
our own sake : 

*' Brother ! sing a loud psalm, 
Our hope's not forlorn 1 
After darkness and twilight breaks forth 
the new morn. 
Let the mad foe get madder, 
Never quail I up the ladder ! 
109 



Hn n;ribulatton 

Grasp the sword 
Of the Lord, 
And forward ! 

** Brother ! up to the breach, 
For Christ's freedom and truth. 
If we Hve, we shall teach, 
With the strong faith of age and the bright 
hope of youth. 
If we perish, then o'er us 
Will ring the loud chorus. 
Grasp the sword 
Of the Lord, 
And forward ! ** 



no 



XIV 

IRigbt BeatiuQ ot Sorrow 

A promise of God to his children is that 
a day shall come when " death shall be no 
more; neither shall there be mourning, 
nor crying, nor pain, any more." But, 
until that day is here, there is sorrow over 
pain and death to the most favored of 
God's children; and the inspired injunc- 
tion to them all is, not that they refrain 
from sorrow, but that they bear themselves 
in their sorrow as becomes God's children; 
that they ^'sorrow not, even as the rest, 
which have no hope.'* 

How to bear sorrow in a Christian spirit, 
as distinct from the hopeless grief of the 
heathen, is a truth to be learned by all 
who are summoned to meet sorrow, — a 
truth that is liable to be forgotten by us 
in the hour when it is timehest as a truth. 
Hopeless sorrow is Christless sorrow. He 
III 



Hn 2:ribulatton 

who realizes that his life is a God-led 
life, and that all his way is portioned out 
for him by unfailing and unerring love, 
cannot sorrow, even in the darkest hour, 
as those who have no hope. 

He who is wholly the Lord's surely 
ought not to give way despondently to 
grief and mourning because of the Lord's 
dealings with him. Under the earlier dis- 
pensation, the high-priest, on whose miter 
was inscribed '* Holiness to the Lord," was 
forbidden to '^ uncover his head " by re- 
moving that miter of consecration, or to 
rend his clothes in mourning, or in any 
such way to defile himself, as God's repre- 
sentative here on earth, even ^^for his 
father, or for his mother." 

When David the king was told that the 
child for whom in its sickness he fasted 
and '4ay all night upon the earth" was 
now dead, he ''arose from the earth, and 
washed, and anointed himself, and changed 
his apparel; and he came into the house 
of the Lord, and worshiped. Then he came 

112 



IRigbt :fi5eartng of Sorrow 

to his own house," and there, when bread 
was set before him, he ate, in order to gain 
new strength for new service. 

This was not because of any lack of 
warmth of heart or of strength of feehng 
on the part of King David, but it was be- 
cause of his Hving faith in God, — that faith 
which marked him as a man after God's 
own heart, and an example of beHevers in all 
the ages. "While the child was yet alive, 
I fasted and wept," he said; ''for I said, 
Who knoweth whether the Lord will not 
be gracious to me, that the child may live? 
But now he is dead, wherefore should I 
fast? can I bring him back again? I shall 
go to him, but he shall not return to me." 

Shall the faith of the Christian believer 
be less potent for comfort and support in 
the hour of personal bereavement than that 
of the ancient Hebrew, before the full truth 
concerning life and immortality had been 
brought to light in the gospel of Christ ? 
Shall he who stands as a witness for Christ 
in the presence of those who need the com- 
8 113 



Hn a:ribulation 

forts of faith in him, dishonor his Master 
by a show of despairing grief in the hour 
of sorrow. " What ? shall we receive good 
at the hand of God, and shall we not receive 
evil?" Even a cause of sorrow, as God's 
gift, is a good gift. 

*' God only smites that through the wounds of wo 
The healing balm he gives may inher flow." 

To be overpowered by sorrow is to 
be selfish in sorrow. One can never be 
crushed by sorrow who is unselfish in a 
sense of sympathy with others, or in a 
sense of the duty of loving service for 
others. Selfish grief absorbs the soul in 
thought of self Its despairing cry is : 

*' Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? 
Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto 

my sorrow, which is done unto me, 
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day 

of his fierce anger." 

Unselfish grief thinks of others who also 
mourn because of this very cause of grief 
*' Jesus wept;" but he wept not for himself 
alone. His heart went out in sympathy 
114 



IRlflbt JSearing ot Sorrow 

toward the sorrowing sisters of his friend 
Lazarus; and as he wept, he spoke words 
of comfort to them, and he did a deed of 
loving ministry in their behalf So of those 
who are like-minded with Christ. The 
pertinent questions of Mrs. Charles, with 
their helpful answers, ought to come home 
to us every one : 

*' Is thy burden hard and heavy ? Do thy steps 
drag wearily ? 
Help to bear thy brother's burden ; God will bear 
both it and thee. 

" Numb and weary on the mountains, wouldst thou 
sleep amidst the snow ? 
Chafe that frozen form beside thee, and together 
both shall glow. 

"Art thou stricken in life's battle ? — many wounded 
round thee moan ; 
Lavish on their wounds thy balsams, and that 
balm shall heal thine own. 

"Is the heart a living power ? Self-entwined, its 
strength sinks low ; 
It can only live in loving, and, by serving, love 
will grow." 

During one of the battles of our Civil 
War, two loving brothers were side by side 
115 



Hn XTribulatlon 

in an advancing line in the face of a mur- 
derous fire. One of them dropped dead, 
with a bullet through his brain. The other 
threw himself upon his brother's dead body 
with a cry of heart-bursting grief Then, 
hearing the commander's inspiriting call, 
''Forward/' he sprang from his embrace 
of the dead, and hurried toward his place 
in the moving line, intent on doing his 
share of the work of the dead and of the 
living, and on being found at his post of 
duty to the last. A faithful and a coura- 
geous soldier that ! His was the spirit of 
the true hero in every sphere. 

Not less faithful, nor less courageous, is 
the bereaved wife who turns from all selfish 
brooding sorrow over her dead husband 
to sympathize with and to minister to her 
dear children, who are also grief-stricken, 
and who need her loving help and care ! 
And thus it is in every sorrow, — the way 
to meet it, and the way to bear it, is to 
recognize it as a gift from a loving Father, 
and as a call to move forward anew in his 
ii6 



IRiQbt :ffiearin0 ot Sorrow 

service for his dear ones. This is the 
Easter lesson, as Mrs. Annie Trumbull 
Slosson tells it : 

" It was an Easter morn. Fair rose the sun, 
And waked the world to beauty and to light ; 
But, as I knelt beside my grave, within 
My hungry, longing soul it still was night. 

" ' Where is my Lord ? Where is my Christ ? ' I 
moaned, 
When suddenly there fell upon my ear 
A faint, sweet sound, like distant angel tones. 
Which every moment seemed to draw more 
near. 

" The children, chanting loud their Easter hymn ! 
Outrang the clear, glad sound, * He is not here ! ' 
Once and again, and yet again it came, 

' He is not here ! Our Christ, he is not here ! ' 

" * Not here ! Then I can never find my Lord : 
Where have they laid him ? Master, help, I 
pray ! * 
The answer came ; my grave seemed opened 
wide. 
As though an angel rolled the stone away. 

" And, looking in, I saw no light, no life : 
It was a dark, a cold, a dreary prison. 
Then rose again those childish voices sweet, 
* He is not here, not here : he is arisen ! ' 
117 



Hn G:rtl)ulatton 

" And lifting up my eyes I saw once more 

The Sun, the Day-star fair, the world's pure 
Light, 
Bhnding these tear-dimmed eyes, so used to see 
Naught but the tomb's dark loneliness and 
night. 

** ' Rabboni, Master ! ' penitent, I cried, 

* Forgive ! ' And still the silvery voices sang, 
* But go your way, and my disciples tell.' 
And I — while yet upon the air it rang — 

*' Obeyed my Master's order, and went back, 
His poor to feed, to clothe ; to show the way 
To wandering ones, his little lambs to lead. 
And so I found my Lord that Easter day." 



Ii8 



XV 

Comtorting an5 Being Comfortet) 

'' Comfort," like ^'virtue," is a word that 
has lost much of its primitive force through 
the prevalence of a lower standard in the 
w^orld's life, so that its original meaning is 
wellnigh lost sight of Primarily, "virtue" 
is *' manliness," "bravery," "knightly char- 
acter;" but as a matter of usage "virtue" 
is merely such a measure of abstinence 
from evil doing as keeps one within the 
pale of decent society. "Comfort" origi- 
nally meant "strength," or "support," but 
now it is generally understood as meaning 
"a state of tranquil enjoyment," or "that 
which produces the feeling of satisfaction." 

In each case the word has been de- 
prived of its pristine vigor, until it fails of 
conveying its best meaning as an expres- 
sion of thought and truth. In both cases, 
it were well for those who have character, 
119 



Hn tribulation 

and who would evidence it, to reassert the 
true meaning of this symbol of courage, as 
a means of help to themselves and others. 

Nothing is worthy of the name of com- 
fort that is not strengthening, invigorating, 
inspiring. Life is a struggle, and he who 
lacks courage lacks comfort in life's con- 
tests. He who would give comfort must in 
some way give strength and courage ; and 
he who would have comfort must avail him- 
self of aids to courage and strength. 

In the Communion Service of the Church 
of England, immediately after the Confes- 
sion and Absolution, the officiating clergy- 
man says to the communicants: ''Hear 
what comfortable words our Saviour Christ 
saith unto all who truly turn to him.'' 
Then follow Scripture passages giving 
assurance of the redeeming power and for- 
giving love of Jesus. Courage and strength 
for the penitent sinner and the struggling 
saint are in these assurances ; therefore they 
are called " comfortable words.'* 

The promise of our Lord to his disciples 
1 20 



Comtorting anD :BcinQ ComtortcD 

was of the Holy Spirit as the "Comforter" 
in all their tribulations and conflicts. The 
word here translated ''Comforter" is more 
literally *'Stander-by." Its suggestion is 
of one ever at hand, ready to give support 
and help. What thought could be more 
cheering and inspiriting than this to any 
battle-worn soldier of Christ, when every 
human helper fails ! It is the thought of 
that old hymn of the fourteenth century : 

*' Fighting alone to-night, 

With not even a stander-by 
To cheer me on in the fight, 

Or to hear me when I cry ; 
Only the Lord can hear, 

Only the Lord can see 
The struggle within, how dark and drear, 

Though quiet the outside be ! 

" O Lord, thou hidest thy face, 

And the battle clouds prevail ! 
Oh, grant me thy sweet grace, 

That I may not utterly fail ! 
Fighting alone to-night, — 

With what a beating heart ; 
Lord Jesus, in the fight, 

Oh, stand not thou apart ! " 

121 



Hn G:r(bulation 

Every heart needs comforting in tribula- 
tion, when heavy burdened and sore taxed. 
But true comfort is found in added strength 
and courage for the duty of bearing up and 
pressing on, not in being diverted from the 
sense of need, or deceived as to its reality. 
Comfort is a stimulus and a tonic, not a 
narcotic or an anodyne. If one cannot 
relieve us from our sorrows, or incite us to 
fresh hope as to their ultimate outcome, 
let him not suppose that he can give us 
comfort by smooth words of pity or sym- 
pathy, or by conventional suggestions that 
ours is the inevitable lot of man. 

And if we would give comfort to others, 
let us realize that it must be by pointing 
them to sources of strength and of cheer 
that shall incite to higher courage and 
prolonged endurance. '^Lord, Hghten my 
burden, or strengthen my back,'' was the 
prayer of a godly man of old, who real- 
ized the nature of true comfort, and longed 
for it. That prayer is one for ourselves 
in our trial, and its answer we should 

122 



Comforting anD :BcinQ ComtorteD 

desire to bring to those whom we would 
comfort. 

There are those whose very presence is 
a comfort to us in any time of sorrow, or 
doubt, or need. Strength and courage are 
in their expression of countenance, — what 
Mathew Royden calls, 

"A sweet attractive kinde of grace, 
A full assurance given by lookes, 
Continuall comfort in a face, 

The lineaments of Gospell bookes." 

And there are others, w^hose most kindly 
intended words of counsel or suggestion in 
the hour of our extremity are of a nature 
to depress rather than inspire us ; so that 
we are tempted to cry out, with Job : 

" I have heard many such things : 
Miserable comforters are ye all. 
Shall vain words have an end?" 

All of us ought to have comfort — 
strength and courage — in the conscious- 
ness that the divine Stander-by is ever at 
our side, and is sure to sustain us to the 
end. And if we ourselves are comforted, 
123 



Hn tTrtbulation 

we shall be a means of comfort to others. 
Our cheer and courage will be contagious; 
and we shall speak words of hope that 
may prove words of life to those who were 
at the point of despair. 

" Blessed be the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies 
and God of all comfort; who comforteth us 
in all our affliction, that we may be able to 
comfort them that are in any affliction, 
through the comfort wherewith we our- 
selves are comforted of God. For, as the 
sufferings of Christ abound unto us, even 
so our comfort also aboundeth through 
Christ." As Miss Hamilton counsels : 

*' Ask God to give thee skill 

In comfort's art, 
That thou may'st consecrated be 

And set apart 
Unto a life of sympathy. 
For heavy is the weight of ill 

In every heart ; 
And comforters are needed much 
Of Christ-Hke touch." 

124 



XVI 

(Bfv>ing Btpression to Spmpatbi? 

How frequently it is said, *' Words are 
of no service to the sorrowing ! '' Because 
of this saying, many a kindly heart refrains 
from expressing in words the sympathy 
with the sorrowing which wells up within 
it abundantly. But this saying is not a 
true saying. Words of sympathy with one 
in sorrow are a help, even w^here they can- 
not be a cure. They bring comfort and 
solace, while they are powerless to remove 
grief 

" A word in due season, how good is it ! *' 
This is true of a word of sympathy as of a 
word of counsel. 

Hearts that would break in their sorrow 
without any assurance of God's love in 
human sympathy, are stayed up in the 
conviction that they are not alone in their 
burden-bearing, as the words of tender in- 
125 



Hn tribulation 

terest in them in their trial multiply from 
those whose expressions carry proof of 
sincerity. Words are of service to the 
sorrowing, and they ought not to be with- 
holden, in the hour of tribulation. 

It is true, as the inspired proverb gath- 
erer has recorded, that '' the heart knoweth 
its own bitterness, and a stranger doth not 
intermeddle with its joy." It is true that 
only he who has a sorrow or a joy has 
fullest understanding of its measure. But 
it is in the light of this truth that another 
inspired writer says to every true-hearted 
follower of Christ : " Rejoice with them 
that rejoice ; weep with them that weep." 

Intermeddle not with another's joy, but 
let him know that you are glad he is 
joyous. Hope not to understand fully, 
or to remove, the bitterness of another's 
grief, but cause him to see that you sorrow 
for his sorrow, and that you would lessen 
or share it if you could. So it is that while 
'' each man shall bear his own burden " in 
a peculiar sense, we can all " bear one 
126 



eivirxQ Eiprc00lon to Si^mpatbi^ 

another's burdens " by our sympathetic 
recognition of them, in fulfilment of the 
law of Christ. 

God does not want his children to sor- 
row and suffer without the help of sym- 
pathy. When Elijah, the stalwart prophet 
of the old dispensation, was weary and dis- 
heartened under the pressure of his many 
trials and struggles, with no human friend 
to give him cheer, God sent an angel to 
speak words of hope to him, and to give 
him courage for a new beginning of his 
work for God and man. When a greater 
than Elijah was in an agony of bitterest 
trial in Gethsemane, without even one fol- 
lower to watch with him for an hour, 
** there appeared unto him an angel from 
heaven, strengthening him." To-day there 
is a better ministry to those who sorrow 
and suffer than any ministry of angels, — a 
ministry of human sympathy as illustrative 
of divine love. It is good to experience 
the gains of that ministry ; it is good to 
bear a part in it. 

127 



Hn Crtbulation 

The expression of sympathy is quite as 
much a duty as the having of sympathy. 
It is very certain that we shall be of no 
service to one in sorrow by a sympathy 
which is not made known to him. And 
how sadly alone he would be if all of his 
friends, in the hour of his sorrow, had a 
sympathy with him which could find no 
form of expression. " Heaviness in the 
heart of man maketh it stoop, but a good 
word maketh it glad." It is the spoken 
word which tells on another's heart. 

*' The kindly words that rise within the heart, 
And thrill it with their sympathetic tone, 
But die ere spoken, fail to play their part. 
And claim a merit which is not their own." 

An unexpressed sympathy may, it is 
true, be deep down in the heart ; but it is 
better that the sympathy should fill the 
heart from the depths to the surface, and 
then overflow in kindly expression. '' Out 
of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh." 

In words out of the abundance of the 

128 



^Mm Eipre66lon to S^mpatb^ 

heart, not in the abundance of words out 
of the heart, does sympathy show itself. 
The words that are fullest of feeling are 
few and well chosen. Sometimes a single 
word tells the whole story. 

Often the best-intentioned proffer of sym- 
pathy fails of good because of the multi- 
plicity of its words. This, indeed, it is 
that leads so many sensitive natures to 
shrink from the expression of the sym- 
pathy they feel when their friends are in 
sorrow. They remember their own annoy- 
ance from the clatter of busy tongues when 
their great grief longed for the privilege of 
its silence, and when they were tempted to 
cry out with Job against his talkative con- 
dolers, " Miserable comforters are ye all. 
Shall vain words have an end ? " And 
lest they should similarly fail of fitting 
utterances of sympathy, they stand mute 
while their hearts are swelling with grief 
that those whom they love are sorrowing. 

The chief value in an expression of sym- 
pathy is in the fact that it zs an expression 

9 129 



Hn tribulation 

of sympathy. There are wide differences 
in the manner of such expression, but the 
comforting truth that is common to them 
all is the truth that sympathy is their 
prompting, and that their utterers would 
gladly give help in the burden-bearing if 
they could. No one of us need ever hold 
back from an expression of sympathy with 
one in sorrow because of a fear that such 
expression may seem to be an intrusion. 
True sympathy can never be deemed intru- 
sive ; and those who sorrow sincerely will 
always be grateful for an assurance of sin- 
cere sympathy, from any human being who 
has interest enough in the sorrowing one 
to be moved to an expression of sympathy. 
There are no exceptions to this rule. 

A father's heart was wrung with anguish 
over the fatal illness of his only son. As 
he answered a question concerning that ill- 
ness in a city street-car, his words caught 
the ear of one of his neighbors, with whom 
he had only a speaking acquaintance, and 
against whom he had long had a prejudice 
130 



eivim JBivxceeion to S^mpatbi? 

because of certain personal minor peculiari- 
ties. That neighbor at once inquired par- 
ticularly as to the condition of the sick 
child, he not having known before this of 
his illness. In the early gray of the next 
morning, after a night of watching over the 
dying boy, the father saw that neighbor at 
his front door, and found he had come to 
inquire with tender interest after the state 
of the little sufferer. That proof of sym- 
pathy with the father in his sorrow trans- 
figured that neighbor in the father's eyes ; 
and now through the vista of years he is 
seen by that father in a loveliness all his 
ow^n, as one who had sympathy in an hour 
of peculiar trial, and had no fear of in- 
truding by giving it expression. 

Again that father w^as in sorrow, even 
more grievously than when he was mourn- 
ing an only son. Another neighbor, newly 
come into his part of the city, whose name 
was barely known to the mourner, sent in 
a simple card in assurance of his sorrowful 
sympathy, and its reception thrilled the 
131 



Hn tribulation 

sorrowing heart with its proof of a wish on 
that new comer's part to show his interest 
in the grief of a stricken household. It 
was not what was done or said, in either of 
these cases, but it was the evident desire to 
say or do something in proof of sympathy, 
that brought comfort and gratitude to the 
heart of the sorrowing one ; and the mani- 
festation of such a desire will never be 
intrusive, or be thought so, in the hour of 
bitterest bereavement. 

An army chaplain in our Civil War had 
just lost his dearest friend and tent-mate, 
killed in battle. His heart was bursting 
with sorrow, and his head was whirling in 
an agony of bewilderment over the magni- 
tude of his personal bereavement, as he 
dragged his lonely way through the cling- 
ing mud of a Virginia road toward his 
division commander's headquarters, to 
make report and to seek assistance in re- 
covering the body. A private soldier of 
his regiment was coming up the road, and, 
with an appreciative sense of his chaplain's 
132 



<3ivim lBiprc06ion to Si^mpatbg 

loss and grief, he drew himself up into the 
position of a soldier, by the roadside, and 
bared his head reverently in the presence 
of a great sorrow. As the chaplain passed 
by, the soldier bowed his head in salute, 
and simply said in tones of thrilling, ten- 
der sympathy, '' So, you have lost your 
friend!'' There was nothing more; but 
the sorrowing heart was grateful ; and still, 
after more than thirty long years, those 
words and tones of sympathy thrill in that 
chaplain's heart of hearts, and he is un- 
speakably grateful for their speaking and 
their memory. 

There are, again, words of sympathy 
spoken to those in sorrow which are pre- 
cious for their own sake. The spirit of 
sympathy prompts to the soul's best utter- 
ances, and many a timely letter written to 
one in bereavement is treasured for years, 
because of the help it has already given, 
and the cheer that its truths may impart to 
yet others also. But, aside from this, there 
is a value in even the simplest expression 
133 



Hn tlrtbulation 

of sympathy with the sorrowing ; and no 
multiplication of such expressions by 
others to one who is bereaved can dimin- 
ish the worth to him of another expression 
of this nature from another sympathizer in 
the hour of his trial. A fresh expression 
of sympathy in sorrow is an added help 
to one whose need is unceasing ; and he 
who has the power of uttering it has the 
power of proving a blessing to one to 
whom God would have help given. 

Only he who has sorrowed most deeply 
can know the real worth of words of sym- 
pathy in sorrow ; but the testimony of 
such souls ought to incite us all to the free 
expression of our sympathy with the sor- 
rowing, without any fear of intrusion 
thereby. Words of Christian sympathy 
are words of Christian cheer. ^^ Wherefore 
comfort one another with these words." 



134 



XVII 

Hfter tbe mrecft 

There are stories of shipwreck which 
stand out in history, and which are re- 
peated from generation to generation. 
Many who read these stories are incHned 
to think that a shipwreck is a terrible yet 
a rare event among experiences on the sea. 
But, on the other hand, never a day passes 
without such a disaster among those who 
go down to the sea in ships ; and never a 
morning dawns but that some who are 
watching on the coast see the signs of a 
wreck that is occurring just now, or that 
recently has occurred, on the waters that 
wash that shore. 

Government statistics show that along 
the shores, inland and ocean, of the United 
States alone, from three to five vessels are 
wrecked, on an average, every day in the 
year, including in their perils from twenty- 
135 



Tin S^rfbulation 

five to thirty thousand persons in a twelve- 
month. In view of these facts, a shipwreck 
is a possibiUty ever present to the minds 
of those who live near the sea, or who have 
loved ones on the sea. They understand 
what is meant by a shipwreck, and their 
daily thoughts and prayers include those 
who are constantly liable to this disaster. 

Only one who has been in a vessel on 
the sea in a storm can fully realize what a 
vessel is to those whom it bears up above 
the waters and before the winds. From 
the days when the ark, which held Noah 
and those who were with him, was the 
only protection and hope to the children 
of men, — while the storm-swept waters 
"prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and 
all the high mountains that were under the 
whole heaven were covered," — down to 
the present day, a vessel on the waters is 
all the world, for the time being, to those 
who have committed themselves to its pos- 
sibilities and its vicissitudes. The thought 
of a wreck to those in a vessel on the 
136 



Bftec the Wvcch 

waters, is the thought of the destruction 
of that which is everything to them; and 
it seems as if with the going down or the 
stranding of that vessel there was a going- 
down of all hope. 

Yet while there are cases in which the 
sudden sinking of a vessel at sea carries 
with it to destruction all who have trusted 
themselves to its protection, it is oftener 
the case that a wreck is not the end of life 
or of hope to those whom it has borne up 
until now. Government statistics show that 
only about one in thirty of those who were 
on vessels wrecked in the waters of the 
United States in a single year lost their 
lives in the disaster. Twenty-nine out of 
every thirty survived the wreck, and had 
to face the question what they were to do 
when they could no longer trust to the 
vessel to which they had trusted all. 

When the vessel which was bearing Paul 

the apostle toward Rome was wrecked on 

the shores of Malta, Paul, who, although a 

prisoner under guard, was recognized as 

137 



Hn G^ribulatton 

the moral superior of them all, '* com- 
manded that they which could swim should 
cast themselves overboard, and get first to 
the land : and the rest, some on planks, and 
some on other things firom the ship. And 
so it came to pass that they all escaped 
safe to the land." Not one of those who 
were on that ill-fated vessel went down 
with it to destruction; but every one of 
them had life and hope and opportunity 
after the wreck. And as it was with Paul 
and his fellow-voyagers, so is it with every 
survivor of every wreck at sea, along shore, 
or — on the land. The hope and the duty 
after the wreck are as real and positive as 
the duty and the hope before the wreck, to 
every one who has trusted to a perishable 
vessel, and been disappointed but not de- 
stroyed. 

Not all shipwrecks are on the sea. Not 
all the vessels to which men commit their 
earthly all sail on the ocean, and breast 
its winds and its waves. There are deep 
waters and stormy winds on land; and 
138 



Bttec tbe Wreck 

there are vessels of home, and of riches, 
and of employment, and of reputation, and 
of affection, which are for a time the all in 
all of those who are making the voyage of 
life in them. And many of these vessels 
also are wrecked; and those who trusted 
to them have, after the wreck, to face the 
question of what is still left of opportunity, 
of possibility, and of hope. 

A husband and father to whom his 
family seems everything and all, is travers- 
ing time's ocean in a sense of entire secur- 
ity, when a sudden storm of disease, or a 
cyclone of accident, wrecks the vessel 
in which he is voyaging, and wife and 
child are taken from his side. What is 
possible to that man after this wreck ? Or, 
when a business enterprise, in which a 
capitalist has ventured all his earthly 
means, is wrecked in a financial whirlwind, 
what remains to him worth Hving for, after 
this? Or, when a laboring man's employ- 
ment is gone through the wreck of the 
establishment for which he was working, 
139 



an {tribulation 

at a time when other wrecks of the same 
sort are strew^ing the shores of his sea 
with fragments, is there anything that still 
remains to be struggled for ? 

Or, when a young man finds his good 
name and reputation, which seemed his all 
in all, wrecked through his folly, or his 
wrong-doing, or his misfortune, is there a 
possibility of continued hope to him? Or, 
when a prized and sacred friendship, which 
seemed imperishable to him who trusted 
himself to its influences and inspirations, is 
wrecked by misunderstandings or oppos- 
ings, is everything gone with this ? These 
are the questions being asked on every 
side by shipwrecked voyagers over life's 
sea, as the vessels to which they trusted go 
down in the great deep. 

There is never a total wreck, when any 
one survives to ask what is worth living 
for after the wreck. There are "broken 
pieces of the ship," when the family has 
struck the rocks of disaster; and out of 
these broken pieces a new shelter can be 
140 



Bfter tbe TOrecft 

constructed to cover the survivors, and to 
center their precious memories as incen- 
tives to renewed endeavors for the com- 
mon good. If fortune or employment be 
wrecked, the man himself remains. 

Even though there be a wreck of repu- 
tation, there is a possibility of renewed life 
and hope. 

" In the wreck of noble lives, 
Something immortal still survives.'* 

And no wreck of friendship can destroy its 
high ideals, or take from him who was true 
in it the gain to his own soul of unselfishly 
striving to be a friend. The memories of 
that friendship will continually declare to 
him who has lost most by it, and yet who 
retains his own purpose of friendship : 

" The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; 
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds." 

Many a man's best work in life is accom- 
plished after the wreck of the vessel to 
141 



Hn tlribulatlon 

which he had entrusted all his earthly 
interests. He who realizes that he voyages 
under the protection of the Saviour who 
kept Paul and his fellow -travelers while 
their ship went to pieces, will never despair 
in the thought of his vessel's wreck; for he 
knows that if the earthly vessel in which 
he journeys be destroyed, he is still 
upborne in a spiritual vessel, given of 
God, not made with hands, eternal as the 
heavens. 



142 



XVIII 

Htterwar&, peace 

''All chastening seemeth for the present 
to be not joyous, but grievous: yet after- 
ward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them 
that have been exercised thereby, even the 
fruit of righteousness." Chastisement, like 
every form of tribulation, is for a purpose. 
Until that purpose is accomplished, the 
chastisement continues as chastisement ; 
when that purpose is accomplished, chas- 
tisement as chastisement ceases, and, in- 
stead of it, its permanent results appear. 

So long as the gold is mixed with dross, 
the heat of the furnace fire is needed for 
the separation of the one from the other; 
but when he who sits, as the refiner, by 
the testing and purifying furnace, sees the 
clear reflection of his own image in the 
molten metal, the work of the assaying 
furnace is accomplished, and the fire's heat 
143 



Hn llribulatlon 

is no longer a necessity. While the husk 
still covers the grain, or the chaff is still 
mingled with the wheat, the prongs and 
the pressure of the threshing-sledge, the 
blows of the whirling flail, or the blast of 
the winnowing fan, must be continued as 
a means of separating the precious from 
the worthless; but when the husbandman 
finally sees that the result of his harvest is 
ready for the garner, through the processes 
of tribulation, he no longer feels the need 
of using the sledge, the flail, or the fan, to 
cleanse the wheat he has toiled for and 
longed after in its purity. Thenceforwax'd 
the grain is freed from the trials to which 
it must have been subjected before. 

Chastening is training. Training is a 
process of upbringing. A child must be 
brought up, trained, chastened, by a parent, 
in order to attain to true manhood. As a 
child, one speaks as a child, feels as a child, 
thinks as a child; but as he is helped to 
become a real man, he is glad to put away 
childish things, while he still continues to 
144 



BttervvarD, IPcacc 

be childlike. God's chastening is man's 
share of tribulation in this life: it is the 
means of separating the good from the 
evil in his character. Without such tribu- 
lation a child of God could never become 
a man of God; nor could he even be sure 
that he is a child of God unless he is a 
partaker of his Father's loving chastise- 
ments as a help toward high manhood. 

It is this thought that the writer to the 
Hebrews emphasizes when he says : '' Ye 
have forgotten the exhortation, which rea- 
soneth with you as with sons, 

My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the 

Lord, 
Nor faint when thou art reproved of him ; 
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. 
And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

It is for chastening that ye endure [that is, 
ye endure because it is a training process] ; 
God dealeth with you as with sons ; for 
what son is there whom his father chasten- 
eth not? But if ye are without chastening, 
whereof all have been made partakers, then 
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Hn G;rlbulation 

are ye bastards, and not sons. Further- 
more, we had the fathers of our flesh to 
chasten us, and we gave them reverence : 
shall we not much rather be in subjection 
unto the Father of spirits, and live ? For 
they verily for a few days chastened us as 
seemed good to them ; but he for our 
profit, that we may be partakers of his 
hohness. All chastening seemeth for the 
present to be not joyous, but grievous : yet 
afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto 
them that have been exercised thereby, 
even the fruit of righteousness/' 

The Greek word here translated '^ exer- 
cised " is a word that applies to gymnastics 
as the training of an athlete. A man who 
is in training for a contest for victory has 
to endure hardness, and be subjected to 
unpleasant pressure and varied self-denials ; 
but he submits willingly, in order that he 
may reap the results of this training. He 
who accepts the tribulation of chastening 
as the training of an athlete, and is 
" exercised thereby," comes into a higher 
146 



BtterwarD, ©eacc 

manhood through his chastening, and 

'' afterward " he has the gain of all this. 

Not now^ but '' afterward!' As Miss 

Havergal reminds us : 

** Now the pruning, sharp, unsparing ; 
Scattered blossom, bleeding shoot ! 
Afterward, the plenteous bearing 
Of the Master's pleasant fruit." 

" What shall thine 'afterward ' be, O Lord ? 

How long must thy child endure ? 
Thou knowest ! 'Tis well that I know it not ! 
Thine ' afterward ' cometh, I cannot tell what, 

But I know that thy word is sure." 

*' Peaceable fruit," " even the fruit of 
righteousness," is to be in the ^^ afterward " 
of improved chastening, of rightly endured 
tribulation. The fruit of peace is a fruit of 
rightness, a fruit of coming, through im- 
proved chastening, into right relations with 
the Father of spirits, who chastens us for 
our upbringing into holiness. ^' Peace," as 
Patterson Du Bois reminds us, " is in its 
root meaning that which binds or fastens ; 
that which makes two things one. Popu- 
larly, the antithesis of peace is war. Peace 
147 



Hn ^tribulation 

is conjunctive; war is disjunctive. Peace 
builds up ; war destroys. Peace unites ; 
war separates. Every time we do an evil 
deed, or think an evil thought, we make 
warfare against God. In this warfare 
something must be injured or destroyed ; 
and, as God cannot be harmed by one 
of his creatures, the creature himself is 
harmed, is in process of destruction. Only 
peace can restore the ruptured bond ; and 
the restoration to union and concord is 
itself peace." 

If we would be at peace with God, we 
must endure the necessary preHminary 
chastenings, tribulations, refinings. There 
is no peace possible to us while causes of 
difference with God remain in our hearts. 
Jesus Christ came from the Father to bring 
God's erring children back into union with 
God ; but he said that a sword would in- 
evitably precede peace. The divine order 
is, '^ first pure, then peaceable." Only as 
the dross and the chaff are purged from 
the better material of our divinely given 
148 



BttenvarD, Ipeace 

nature can we have that purity that pre- 
cedes peace. The plow and harrow must 
come before the harvest, the flail and the 
fan before the garner. As Horatius Bonar 
sings : 

" 'Tis first the good and then the beautiful, 
Not first the beautiful and then the good ; 
First the rough seed, sown in the rougher soil, 
Then the flower blossom, or the branching 
wood. 

** 'Tis first the night, — stern night of storm and war, 
Long nights of heavy clouds and veiled skies, — 
Then the far sparkle of the morning star. 
That bids the saints awake and dawn arise." 

It is the peace that comes only after con- 
flict and struggle that gives joy and rest to 
the soul. In the words of Helen Gray Cone : 

" There is no calm hke that when storm is done; 
There is no pleasure keen as pain's release ; 
There is no joy that hes so deep as peace. 
No peace so deep as that by struggle won." 

In the Old Testament and in the New 

are divinely given assurances of peace ; but 

the wilderness of training has to be passed 

before the land of promised rest in God, 

149 



Hn ^Tribulation 

which is peace, can be the pilgrim's home. 
The commanded blessing of the high-priest 
upon the children of Israel was : 

" The Lord bless thee, and keep thee : 
The Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and 

be gracious unto thee : 
The Lord hft up his countenance upon thee, and 
give thee peace." 

Jesus said to his disciples : ^' Peace I leave 
with you ; my peace I give unto you : not 
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let 
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be 
fearful." The apostolic benediction was : 
" Grace to you and peace from God our 
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Every 
one of God's children and of Christ's fol- 
lowers can have restful peace in Christ, 
even in this life, if he will but endure unto 
the end, and rightly improve, his Father's 
appointed tribulations for his necessary 
purifying. '^ Let us fear therefore, lest 
haply, a promise being left of entering into 
his rest, any one of you should seem to 
have come short of it.'* 
150 



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